GOBLIN MARKET, TANGIER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2295, 24 February 1898, Page 50

GOBLIN MARKET, TANGIER.

It is the Clierif's weddirg day. Mirket day and a marriage ; that does not mean he is a bßchelor — not mncb. He is greatly morried indeed, and this is merely his reriodical wedding day. A Cherif i 3 a sort of ecclesiastical dignitary in the Mohammedan "church," and this particular diguitary enjoys life much, ia Mohammedan wise. Wnen the Cherif gets married the city is en fete. There is " powder play " — that odd play, mere whirling and BhootiDg off guas, that the Moors so love j nobody 5s beheaded, or sent to priaon, or damaged ia eyes or limb. The women may go out of door* if they have been very good — a few of them — and they file down to the shore through the odorous streets on camels, sitting croas-Jf gged arid balancing with care, and very shapeless. You may see them visiting the baths at times in the same well-guarded way. Are they tired ? — nobody helps them. Are they athirsfc? — they must buy a cup of water as yonder soldier is doing (as Lazarus thought Abraham in Paradise would have todo) ; but ihe free, common people may go to tbe old picturesque well and draw water for themselves. Rat-tat-too ! Tbe weird thrumming and singing continue within those blind, white walls pierced by but one grim doorway, which boasts no carving, no cornice, no paint, but the print of the sacred hand in Mohammed's sacred colour — green. What is the connection between music and massacre ? for all Tangerine mnsic- makers are butchers in the town. They sit in a row and chant to each other a sort of cheerful dirge, with rhythmic nods to tbe quaint eld tune and the graceful but- toneless tomtoms and banjo things which produce it. Momently the crowd thickens. There is the wildest eagerness to get nearer to the bridegroom's door and catch the glimpse that is given to a few, "in an hour that ye think not," for he will come forth once to-day. Bat no response follows the shouting and tbe pushing. The doorway is barred. Not a head appears at the tiny orifices which air the upper rooms in that sepulchral castle nor on the long flat raof. Down the street comes the crowning festivity — what tbe Moors most love next to waritself— a flashing band of Berbers from the hill*, with their long matchlocks inlaid with silver, their shaven black pates, well bcarred some of them, bound round by their red or purple gun cases or a few brown threads of camel-hair cord ; and they pneh past the palace shorewarde, whilst the excitement and din are enougn to wake the dead. It do's wake tbe dead. From the dead palace the dead are creeping one by one, till the whole roof line (as time slips bj) is crowded with muffled, mysterious white figures, whose heads — what heads 1 are they black or white, iieshless skulls of those Circassian houris that we read of as stolen for the harem ? We cannot tell, for all alike, old and young, are shrouded with the ghostly equality of the haik, without which no deceut woman may be seen abroad. Not a glimpse of a black eye, not the movement of a hand, not a touch of colour distinguishes from one another these mute white bundles, leaning corpse-like against the tall parapet. There is something inexpressibly mournful in their silence and stillness and in their constantly increasing numbers. Wrapt and stifled away from all human interests, and from all the variety that makes life bearable, these are truly ghosts of women, for it is verily death in life. Behind the blanket are there hearts that beat like our own? are there laughter and jesting? are there heartache and tears ? Every one of these has been a happy bride, has bad her little day, and now represents nothing to the t&t old Cberif bat a number, and is noticed

only as she departs from her dutiep, more or less menial, in his household. " How much better," said the Shah of Persia when he wafl over here recently, " to live for 50 years with one wife than for one year with 50 wives 1 " and he ought to know. On the grass between bills and beach the Berbers hare cleared a place somehow, and the strange barbaric dance is in full force ; behind them the lovely bay of Tangier, blue as a turquoise in the luminous afternoon, with its reaches of snowy sand. Four men hexe face four men there, with their matchlocks brandished, running to and fro, much as in the second figure of the old-fashioned quadrille. They fling themselves on their knees and shoot, they spring up and shoot, they twirl round and round shooting in unison, uttering sharp cries like animals at the golden flash of tha powder. This is all, and it continues for hours without the least fatigue, till either the powder gives out or their legs give war, and then they stop. That is the celebrated " powder-play." But what is this small square box closely covered with printed cotton handkerchief?, borne on a much-enduring mule, and on its top a cone of silk and trinkets 1 Behold !it is Madame Fifty or Five Hundred, or what; not — the Bride; herself co doubt enjoying the ceremonies given in her honour, tbonghv her attitude must be, to say the least, contracted, like ber vision — for just as we cannot see her, I doubt if Bhe sees much I—but1 — but she has the satisfaction of knowing that her poor little box is the point of the entire precession. Tbe proudest day — the one proud day — in the Moorish woman's life is spent in that square box. She iB pitched into it from the shoulders of her oldest kinsman ; she is carried to her husband's house in it ; she has her dowry piled on top of it ; the human being is a mere item in the goods yielded to the " lord and master." She cannot see, she cannot sit upright ; crouched in this bex the young beauty spends five or six suffocating hours in the eastern sun. guarded by steaming slaves 1 and eunuobs, and hearkening to the crashing din which makes her a wife and perlaaps a mother, for the^e comestic ceremonies are "the wedrtirg." Perhaps she is a cbilfl, for many a Moorish girl is a. mother at IS ; perhaps she is fire f»nd twenty, and married because sba is a good cook yr needlewoniJO?. Her qualitias little matter to the outer world — whether shouting crowds of slalwarS horsemen , or the foreign visitors, or anyone beyond the harem ia which she ia to oa a new element of discord or of envy. Shu is sold : Goblin market at da-* -dawn, tbe sale of. a ghost at noon-daj. — Mrs Haweis, la Travel.