It is fair to say that auctioneers and buyers treat the slaves in a manner that is not unkind.  They handle them just as though they were animals with a market value that ill-treatment will diminish, and a few of the women are brazen, shameless creatures—­obviously, and perhaps not unwisely, determined to do the best they can for themselves in any surroundings.  These women are the first to find purchasers.  The unsold adults and little children seem painfully tired; some of the latter can hardly keep pace with the auctioneer, until he takes them by the hand and leads them along with him.  Moors, as a people, are wonderfully kind to children.

The procedure never varies.  As a client beckons and points out a slave, the one selected is pushed forward for inspection, the history is briefly told, and if the bidding is raised the auctioneer, thanking Allah, who sends good prices, hurries on his way to find one who will bid a little more.  On approaching an intending purchaser the slave seizes and kisses his hand, then releases it and stands still, generally indifferent to the rest of the proceedings.

[Illustration:  DILALS IN THE SLAVE MARKET]

“It is well for the slaves,” says the Atlas Moor, rather bitterly, for the fifth and last girl child has gone up beyond his limit.  “In the Mellah or the Madinah you can get labour for nothing, now the Sultan is in Fez.  There is hunger in many a house, and it is hard for a free man to find food.  But slaves are well fed.  In times of famine and war free men die; slaves are in comfort.  Why then do the Nazarenes talk of freeing slaves, as though they were prisoners, and seek to put barriers against the market, until at last the prices become foolish?  Has not the Prophet said, ‘He who behaveth ill to his slave shall not enter into Paradise’?  Does that not suffice believing people?  Clearly it was written, that my little Mohammed, my first born, my only one, shall have no playmate this day.  No, Tsamanni:  I will bid no more.  Have I such store of dollars that I can buy a child for its weight in silver?”

The crowd is thinning now.  Less than ten slaves remain to be sold, and I do not like to think how many times they must have tramped round the market.  Men and women—­bold, brazen, merry, indifferent—­have passed to their several masters; all the children have gone; the remaining oldsters move round and round, their shuffling gait, downcast eyes, and melancholy looks in pitiful contrast to the bright clothes in which they are dressed for the sale, in order that their own rags may not prejudice purchasers.

Once again the storks from the saint’s tomb pass over the market in large wide flight, as though to tell the story of the joy of freedom.  It is the time of the evening promenade.  The sun is setting rapidly and the sale is nearly at an end.

“Forty-one dollars—­forty-one,” cries the dilal at whose heels the one young and pretty woman who has not found a buyer limps painfully.  She is from the Western Soudan, and her big eyes have a look that reminds me of the hare that was run down by the hounds a few yards from me on the marshes at home in the coursing season.