This was a wedding of great eclat; all the native Jewish aristocracy of Mogador being invited to it.  The festivities, beginning at noon, I first entered the apartment where the bride was sitting in state.  She was elevated on a radiant throne of gold and crimson cushions amidst a group of women, her hired flatterers, who kept singing and bawling out her praises.  “As beautiful as the moon is Rachel!” said one.  “Fairer than the jessamine!” exclaimed another.  “Sweeter than honey in the honey-comb!” ejaculated a third.  Her eyes were shut, it being deemed immodest to look on the company, and the features of her face motionless as death, which made her look like a painted corpse.

To describe the dresses of the bride would be tedious, as she was carried away every hour and redressed, going through and exhibiting to public view, with the greatest patience, the whole of her bridal wardrobe.  Her face was artistically painted; cheeks vermillion; lips browned, with an odoriferous composition; eye-lashes blackened with antimony; and on the forehead and tips of the chin little blue stars.  The palms of the hands and nails were stained with henna, or brown-red, and her feet were naked, with the toe-nails and soles henna-stained.  She was very young, perhaps not more than thirteen, and hugely corpulent, having been fed on paste and oil these last six months for the occasion.  The bridegroom, on the contrary, was a man of three times her age, tall, lank and bony, very thin, and of sinister aspect.  The woman was a little lump of fat and flesh, apparently without intelligence, whilst the man was a Barbary type of Dickens’ Fagan.

The ladies had now arranged themselves in tiers, one above the other, and most gorgeous was the sight.  Most of them wore tiaras, all flaming with gems and jewels.  They were literally covered from head to foot with gold and precious stones.  As each lady has but ten fingers, it was necessary to tie some scores of rings on their hair.  The beauty of the female form, in these women, was quite destroyed by this excessive quantity of jewellery.  These jewels were chiefly pearls, brilliants, rubies and emeralds.

They are amassed and descend as heir-looms in families, from mother to daughter.  Some of the jewels being very ancient, they constitute the riches of many families.  In reverses of fortune, they are pledged, or turned into money to relieve immediate necessity.  The upper tiers of ladies were the youngest, and least adorned, and consequently the prettiest.  The ancient dowagers sat below as so many queens enthroned, challenging scrutiny and admiration.  They were mostly of enormous corpulency, spreading out their naked feet and trousered legs of an enormous expanse.