“_Allahu akbar!_” The cry of the Muezzin in the minaret of the mosque came faintly up to us on the heights.
“Progress?” said Mme. Hortense in answer to my question, as the ridiculous shambling figure of the snake charmer left the terrace. “Among the Jews, yes, if you call it progress! When I came here, thirty-four years ago, your boy Israel’s father and all the rest of them, wore the fez and the kaftan. Now many of the younger ones wear straw hats and trousers. They have built themselves comfortable houses in the worst possible taste. The schools of the Israelite Alliance have really accomplished a miracle. For the Moors there is no progress, believe me. In all these years they have not advanced one step. Here in Tangiers they are on their good behavior, of course; the city is well policed by the European powers. There is no public slave market here, you must go to Fez to see that; but as to real advance,--look at that blind man! His eyes were put out for stealing.”
Down the hot road under the blue cactus hedge a poor pock-marked blind man cried for alms. Mme. Hortense threw him a coin, a tall, shrouded woman who was passing, a bare brown child astride on her hip, picked up the money and gave it him.
“God increase thy goods,” said the blind man. Then as he wandered down the hill led by his dog, tapping with his cane, “God vouchsafe thee a good evening. May thy night be happy!”
“He is my cook’s son,” said Mme. Hortense. “All my servants are Moors, except my Jewish chairmen,--no Moor will carry a Christian. I like the Moors best. At the time of the last uprising I asked my favorite servant what he would do if our house were attacked. He said, ‘I would lie down on the ground before you. That means that you belong to me and that they must kill me before they touch you.’ I think he would have done it, too. A good Moor has no vices; he neither drinks nor smokes. The doctors will tell you what good blood they have; a wound heals with them in half the time it does with us. Of course I know the servant class best, that is natural. The better class do not like us,--can you blame them? A man my husband knew, quite a great personage in his way, got into evil ways from associating with Christians; in fact, he drank himself to death. He was a sacred person, of the family of the prophet. The faithful believed the liquor he drank was turned to milk as it touched his lips, and that he died without sin; all the same, the wise ones hold us at arm’s length.”