I remember calling on one Hadj Abdullah when I was in the North, and to my surprise he told me he spoke English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Moghrebbin Arabic, and Shilha.  “I know London well,” he said; “I have an engagement to bring my troupe of acrobats to the Canterbury and the Oxford.  I am a member of a Masonic Lodge in Camberwell.”  Commonplace enough all this, but when you have ridden out of town to a little Moorish house on the hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, and are drinking green tea flavoured with mint, on a diwan that must be used with crossed legs, you hardly expect the discussion to be turned to London music-halls.

Snake-charmers make a strong appeal to the untutored Moorish crowd.  Black cobras and spotted leffa snakes from the Sus are used for the performance.  When the charmer allows the snakes to dart at him or even to bite, the onlookers put their hands to their foreheads and praise Sidi ben Aissa, a saint who lived in Mequinez when Mulai Ismail ruled, a pious magician whose power stands even to-day between snake-charmers and sudden death.  The musician who accompanies the chief performer, and collects the floos offered by spectators, works his companion into a condition of frenzy until he does not seem to feel the teeth of the snakes; but as people who should be well informed declare that the poison bags are always removed before the snakes are used for exhibition, it is hard for the mere Unbeliever to render to Sidi ben Aissa the exact amount of credit that may be due to him.

[Illustration:  A BRICKFIELD, MARRAKESH]

The story-teller, whose legends are to be found in the “Thousand Nights and a Night,” is generally a merry rogue with ready wit.  His tales are told with a wealth of detail that would place them upon the index expurgatorius of the Western world, but men, women, and children crowd round to hear them, and if his tale lacks the ingredients most desired they do not hesitate to tell him so, whereupon he will respond at once to his critics, and add love or war in accordance with their instructions.  One has heard of something like this in the serial market at home.  His reward is scanty, like that of his fellow-workers, the acrobat and the snake charmer, but he has quite a professional manner, and stops at the most exciting points in his narrative for his companion to make a tour of the circle to collect fees.  The quality of the adventures he retails is settled always by the price paid for them.

It is a strange sight, and unpleasant to the European, who believes that his morality, like his faith, is the only genuine article, to see young girls with antimony on their eyelids and henna on their nails, listening to stories that only the late Sir Richard Burton dared to render literally into the English tongue.  While these children are young and impressionable they are allowed to run wild, but from the day when they become self-conscious they are strictly secluded.