r to be had
to-day, but _m[=a]nana_." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but
_m[=a]nana_." "The boots left to be soled were not ready, but
_m[=a]nana_." Tetuan lives upon _m[=a]nana_: it is the reincarnation of
JAM YESTERDAY, AND JAM TO-MORROW, BUT NEVER JAM TO-DAY.

Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper of locking up his
shop and going off to pray or eat or chat. If a shop had to be revisited
and purchases exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door
fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 p.m. nobody could ever be found, but
was presumably at the mosque. Again and again we visited the same shop:
one day the owner was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We
gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated inside the
little cupboard the very next time we passed.

[Illustration: SHOPS IN TETUAN.

[_To face p. 94._]

Walking by a saint-house on the outskirts of the city, devout and
impoverished women were often to be seen there, visiting the shrine and
carrying with them small vessels of food, which they placed on the ground
for the spirit of the holy man to eat. The window of the shrine was tied
with a hundred scraps of rag and dead flowers, bits of wood, and paper
and oddments of all sorts. Empty earthenware bowls later on, and pariah
dogs skulking around, licking their lips, told a tale; but if asked if
they really thought their saint would come up out of his grave and eat
the food prepared for him, it was open to the Mussulman to answer the
Christian, "And do you really believe that your dead friends come and
smell the flowers you plant on their graves?"

Small-pox kills a great many Moors, and an incredible number are marked
by the disease. It is looked upon much as measles are in England: cases
are never isolated, and children are all expected to have it. Each year
it is prevalent, and people may be passed in the street with it out upon
them; but every four years it breaks out seriously, and a large
percentage of the population dies.

Last of all, in our shopping days a few things we bought by auction. No
auctioneer is employed as in European countries, but the owner and seller
himself perambulates the street or courtyard with his goods--a mule, or a
frying-pan, or a carpet--calling out each successive bid which he
receives on his article, pushing his way and jostling the motley mob of
market people, peasants and loungers, silks and rags, until he has got
his pr