an English family being met by the lady of the house one morning, when
she had brought short measure, said, pointing to the husband in the
distance, "_You_ be my friend; take this" (slipping a few coppers
worth half a farthing into her hand), "don't tell _him_ anything about
it. I'll share the profit with you!" She probably knew from experience
that the veriest trifle would suffice to buy over the wife of a Moor.

Instructions having been given to his wife or wives as to what is to
be prepared, and how--he probably pretends to know more of the art
culinary than he does--the husband will start off to attend to his
shop till lunch, which will be about noon. Then a few more hours in
the shop, and before the sun sets a ride out to his garden by the
river, returning in time for dinner at seven, after which come talk,
prayers, and bed, completing what is more or less his daily round. His
wives will probably be assisted in the house-work--or perhaps entirely
relieved of it--by a slave-girl or two, and the water required will be
brought in on the shoulders of a stalwart negro in skins or
barrels filled from some fountain of good repute, but of certain
contamination.

In cooking the Moorish women excel, as their first-rate productions
afford testimony. It is the custom of some Europeans to systematically
disparage native preparations, but such judges have been the victims
either of their own indiscretion in eating too many rich things
without the large proportion of bread or other digestible nutriment
which should have accompanied them, or of the essays of their own
servants, usually men without any more knowledge of how their mothers
prepare the dishes they attempt to imitate than an ordinary English
working man would have of similar matters. Of course there are certain
flavourings which to many are really objectionable, but none can be