he
Kor[=a]n and a religious treatise or two, to tempt them to learn. As for
geography, an intelligent Moor will know by name England, France, and
Germany, not Russia, and that his own country is the biggest, the best,
and the most powerful.

Leaving the noisy little school, which did not approve of being stared
at, we came to the empty palace, with its great horse-shoe doorway,
painted blue-white and carved in a rudimentary way, called in Arabic "The
little garden," descriptive of its inside courtyard, planted with
oranges, figs, and palms.

Farther on stands the forge of the fortress: "for the slippers for the
horses," Hadj Riffi explained. The blacksmith wore an apron of a whole
goat-skin; he pared down the hoof with an instrument like a shovel,
helped by the horse's owner or any chance onlooker, for Moors "hunt in
packs," and only a mere Christian does anything by himself. The shoe is a
complete circle of iron, has three nails on each side, and in some places
a bar across the centre.

At last we reached the prison, the principal feature of the Kasbah. Much
has been written about Moorish prisons, to be put down by ignorant
critics as exaggerated. English visitors have shown up their horrors,
only to be forbidden now by a stringent order to go inside. It is hard
to say what happens behind the scenes, but torture is lightly thought of
in Morocco; "cruelty," as Europeans understand it, has no place nor
meaning in ignorant, fanatical minds; and an unpleasant inference is
therefore to be drawn.

Of course many of the prisoners are confined, in all good faith, for
offences, and will be released in time; but there are also Moors, in high
positions socially, or possessed formerly of means, who "wither and
agonize" year after year in captivity, their only fault that they were
rich or influential in bygone days, thus tempting a jealous rival to
remove them out of his path, or a greedy Government to confine them and
feed upon their money. If they ever come out, it will be because a
wealthy friend has chosen to pay the Government for their release, or
because it has happened to occur to the ministers at Court to send for
them; and half of them will reappear but scarred remnants of the men who
went in. Descriptions of tortures which were unknown even in the Middle
Ages in England may well be omitted: tortures which result in blind and
tongueless creatures, without hands; bled of every penny they once
possessed, and maimed in