ce where other gods had been
worshipped,--I hesitated, wishing to look closer into this curiosity,
but recollected myself, and was passing on. An Arab in the turban of
one who had been to Mecca was squatting cross-legged on the old marble
pavement outside the mosque, and I just took in that he was a fine
venerable fellow with an important beard, with a look of wisdom and
experience in his steady glance from under the strong arches of his
eyebrows that made me wish I knew Arabic, and could squat beside him,
and gossip of the wide world. As I turned he said quietly, "Good day!"

Now I thought perhaps I was bewitched, but turned and looked at him.
"How are you?" he asked. At that moment, when his eyes looking upward
had a smile of understanding mischief, and in such an alien city as
Sfax, I was prepared to declare there is but one God and Mahomet is His
prophet. For that sort of thing comes easy to me; and would have been
quite true, as far as it went. Then I went back to him, and fearing
that after all I might be addressing but the parrot which had already
exhausted its vocabulary, I tried it on him: "Shall I take my boots off
here, father, or may I sit down with you?"

"Sit down," he said.

He was a man of medicine. He sold there prophylactics against
small-pox, adultery, blindness, the evil eye, sterility, or any other
trouble which you thought threatened you. If a man feared for the
faithfulness of his spouse, it seems Father the Hadj could secure it
with a charm, and so allow him to spend the night elsewhere in perfect
enjoyment and content. That is what the quiet old cynic told me, and
invited me to inspect his display of amulets and fetishes, coloured
glass tablets with Arabic inscriptions, and a deal of stuff which
looked unreasonable to me, articles the holy man either could not or
would not resolve into sense.

His English, which he had learned as a shipping agent for the pilgrim
traffic, soon reached its narrow limits, to my sorrow. When it left
common objects and we wished to compare our world (for there is no
doubt he was an experienced and understanding elder who knew to within
a little what he might expect of his God and of his fellows), we were
left smiling at each other, and had to guess the rest. Yet at least the
bazaar could witness this good Moslem of age and admitted wisdom
sitting opposite a dubious Christian in a companionable manner; and
there was that testimony to my advantage. They even watche