skull-caps over suspiciously shining love-locks. Most of the Jewish men
seemed to have had smallpox; in their speech they relied upon a very base
Arabic, together with worse Spanish or quite barbarous French. Djedida
having no Mellah, as the Moorish ghetto is called, they were free to trade
all over the town, and for rather less than a pound sterling I bought
quite an imposing collection of cutlery, plate, and dishes for use on the
road. It is true, as I discovered subsequently, that the spoons and forks
might be crushed out of shape with one hand, that the knives would cut
nothing rougher than Danish butter, and were imported from Germany with a
Sheffield mark on them to deceive the natives, and that the plates and
dishes were not too good to go with the cutlery. But nothing had been
bought without bargaining of a more or less exciting and interesting sort,
and for the bargaining no extra charge whatever was made. The little
boxlike shops, with flaps that served as shutters, were ill-adapted for
private purchase; there was no room for more than the owner inside, and
before we had been at one for five minutes the roadway became impassable.
All the idlers and beggars in that district gathered to watch the
strangers, and the Maalem was the only one who could keep them at bay.
Salam would merely threaten to cuff an importunate rogue who pestered
us, but the Maalem would curse him so fluently and comprehensively, and
extend the anathema so far in either direction, from forgotten ancestors
to unborn descendants, that no native could stand up for long against the
flashing eye, the quivering forefinger, the foul and bitter tongue of him.
There were times, then and later on, when the Maalem seemed to be some
Moorish connection of Captain Kettle's family, and after reflecting upon
my experience among hard-swearing men of many nations, seafarers,
land-sharks, beach-combers and the rest, I award the Maalem pride of
place. You will find him to-day in Djedida, baking his bread with the aid
of the small apprentice who looks after the shop when he goes abroad, or
enjoying the dreams of the haschisch eater when his work is done. He is no