18 



&l)e iTarmcr'g iHontljIg Visitor. 



all vessels going in or out of the straits, pass 

 within range of our view. 



Labor here is remarkalily cheap. The usual 

 price for gardeners and other laborers, per day, 

 is but two and a half ounces or doces, which is 

 equal to only fourteen cents, our money. The 

 usual hours of labor are from sunrise to four 

 o'clock, P. M., without stopping for a regular meal. 

 But if these Moors and Arabs work cheap, they 

 also live cheap; ihey will work all day on a 

 small bit of bread and a handful of dates, or an 

 onion. 



Most kinds of provisions are likewise cheap. 

 Beef is usually about four cents per Moorish 

 pound, which is twenty-four ounces, or a pound 

 and a half, our weight. Eggs, one doce, or 

 about five and a half cents per dozen ; chickens, 

 from three to four doces each. Potatoes are 

 dear, from two to three cents per pound. There 

 is no reason for this, that I know of, excepting 

 that it is loo laborious raising them ; for I be- 

 lieve that nothing of the rot has yet appeared 

 in the potato here. I do not find any of the 

 sweet potato raised here; I intend to try them. 

 Butter is not sold by the pound ; it is brought 

 to market in small earthen jars of various sizes, 

 and sold by the lump. It is churned in goat 

 skins, is as white as lard, and is generally diny 

 stuff, not fit to eat. We pay two and sixpence, 

 (thirty-one and one-fourth cents,) per pound for 

 English or Irish butter, of a passable quality, 

 which we obtain through Gibraltar. Why do 

 not some of our Yankee dairymen send over a 

 cargo of their fine butter for this market?— 

 They might make a good speculation by it. 

 Barley sells for three to four doces a mood— 

 which weighs twenty-seven pounds— and wheat 

 from four to six doces— which is equal to about 

 half a dollar a bushel ;— aldora, or Egyptian 

 corn, sells for about the same as barley— and al- 

 so Indiau corn, about the same. There are no 

 oats of consequence raised. Wheat, barley and 

 aldora are sown in January; the first two are 

 harvested in June and July, and the aldora in 

 October. Corn is plunted in March, and gather- 

 ed in September or October. 



The cattle of this country are of a medium 

 size, quite small boned, and with compact forms, 

 and almost universally of a dull dun color, occa- 

 sioned, 1 suppose, by their constant exposure to 

 the hot sun of these latitudes ; and they all have 

 immensely long, slim, branching horns; the 

 bulls are no exception in this particular; on the 

 contrary, I should think they excelled the rest of 

 the herd in this respect. The cattle all seem to 

 be of a hardy nature, and keep in good condi- 

 tion on very slight feed ; the cows, I believe, are 

 about of a medium rate as milkers. The sheep 

 are of a good size and fine form, but, judging 

 from those that have come under my observation- 

 they appear quite inferior as to wool :— they have 

 very lung, heavy fleeces, but they are much too 

 coarse. The goats are the finest, I think, that I 

 ever saw. Their long, finej glossy fleeces, hang 

 ill rich profusion from their sides, resembling 

 the most beautiful silk— their color is generally 

 black— a few are white, and some are black and 

 white. 



This is the commencement of the sheep festival 

 of the Moors, and thousands of sheep and goals 

 have been thronging the markets for a week 

 past. You could not go through the streets 

 without meeting— here a Moor leading ,, buck or 

 wether by the horns— there, one with a sheep's 

 hind legs in his hands, trundling him along on 



his fore feet, after the wheel-barrow fashion— 

 and yonder a wild-looking Arab, with a live 

 sheep across his shoulders and around his neck. 

 In thinking of the dreadful slaughter to be 

 made among these poor animals, I could not 

 help repeating the words of the poet : 



" The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day 



Had he thy reason would he skip and play 1" 



But of all the domestic, animals of this coun- 

 try, the Arabian horses, or barbs, as they are call- 

 ed, are the most noble and beautiful. They are, 

 in fact, renowned the world over, for their noble 

 qualities and superior points. I have had the 

 good fortune to obtain one of these fine, pure 

 blooded stallions. Although hut four years old, 

 he stands full sixteen hands high, is of a jet, 

 glossy black color, with a beautiful mane, a long 

 sweeping tail, a finely arched neck, and clean 

 limbs; and his movement is as light and grace- 

 ful as that of a gazelle. He was procured for 

 me of a Kahyle chief, in one of the interior pro- 

 vinces, through the exertions of a kind friend. 

 Several of my consular colleagues have beauti- 

 ful specimens of these noble barbs. The Moors 

 and Arabs are strongly attached to their horses, 

 and are very reluctant to part with them ; they 

 pet them, caress them, and even kiss them ; and 

 it is said they treat them with more kindness and 

 fondness than they do their wives; but that 

 must of course, be a scandal ! The power of 

 endurance which these horses possess, is truly 

 surprising ; they will travel day after day, over 

 sandy plains or rocky mountains, on an amount 

 of feed that would scarcely suffice for a sheep. 

 Horses are not allowed to he taken from this 

 country without paying an export duty of one 

 hundred dollars each ; excepting that, as a mat- 

 ter of courtesy, the Emperor gives to the vari- 

 ous Consuls General residing here, the privilege 

 of shipping one occasionally, to their several 

 countries. Mares are not allowed to be taken 

 away at any price, and an export duty of ten 

 dollars per head has to be paid for shipping bul- 

 locks from here. 



No such thing as a wagon or wheeled carriage, 

 was ever seen in this country. Horses, camels, 

 nudes and donkeys, or asses, are used as beasts 

 of burden; but the beast of all work and all 

 drudgery is the donkey ; on his back are borne 

 loads of wood, stone, straw, sand, lumber, ma- 

 nure, wild Arabs, live sheep, and in fact, everv 

 thing portable. A drove of forty of these ani"- 

 mals marched in defile before my door the other 

 day, all laden with sand, to be used in re-build- 

 ing a portion of the consular house. 



On market days (which take place on Thurs- 

 day and Sunday of every week,) hundreds of 

 these patient animals, and hundreds of camels, 

 may be seen winding their way along the rugged 

 mountain (.asses, and through the intervening 

 valleys, and pouring from the hill-sides into the 

 market place, (or soco, as it is called,) laden with 

 the strangest looking cargoes and most wild and 

 grotesque looking beings that man ever looked 

 upon. You will see the wild Bedouin Arab 

 from the desert, the ebony negro, the fierce 

 mountaineer, the swarthy Kahyle— many with 

 their huge shoulders and bronzed breasts, and 

 their long brawny arms and legs, entirely naked 

 —some mounted on lumbering camels, some on 

 mules and asses— with the tattered remnants of 

 their garments streaming to the breeze— some 

 dashing onward on foot, driving droves of beasts 

 before them:— and then, as they enter the soco, 

 to see them running furiously through, and min- 



gling with, a ciowd of a thousand persons, com- 

 posed of troops of fine, manly looking Moors of 

 the town, with their white flowing haiks and 

 their snowy-white turbans — and sharp-eyed 

 Jews, with their close black caps, shrugging 

 their shoulders and seeking for a close bargain — 

 and amidst all this, to hear the loud yells, the al- 

 most deafening clamor and confusion of tongues, 

 wh.ch rend the air — such scenes as these— so 

 strange and so novel, combining the oriental 

 with the grotesque, the savage and the ludicrous, 

 are beyond any thing that the wildest imagina- 

 tion, in its strangest flights of fancy, can well 

 conceive of. 



But I am digressing. In speaking of the do- 

 mestic animals of this country, I omitted to no- 

 tice swine, for the very good reason that here 

 they rank as wild animals instead of domestic. 

 You are aware that the creeds of the Jews and 

 Mahometans interdict the use of pork. Conse- 

 quently, there is nothing of the swine species to 

 be found in this country, excepting the wild boar; 

 and these are quite abundant. Hunting the wild 

 boar, is rare sport, and very exciting, withal. I 

 have been on one of these wild forays among 

 the mountains, and had two fair shots at a young 

 Boar, and one at an Ichneumon, but my little 

 daughter, who accompanied me to our encamp- 

 ment, says that I was "too humane to kill the 

 poor creatures." I was obliged to accept of her 

 ironical apology, for the want of a better one. 

 Our party, however, killed two huge wild boars, 

 and I must confess that my " humanity" did not 

 deprive me of the gratification of " being in at 

 the death." They had immense tusks, and 

 would weigh, I judged, two hundred pounds 

 each, although they were not fat. Their hair 

 was of a dark iron gray color, and quite coarse. 

 The meat of the wild boar is sometimes very 

 tender and of good flavor. 



I have been trying to procure a young wild 

 boar to send you alive, hut have not yet succeed- 

 ed ; for neither the Moors nor Jews dare he 

 seen bringing one of them in— they dare scarce- 

 ly touch these " unclean beasts," as they regard 

 them. They do occasionally, however, slip a pig 

 under their haik or blanket, and bring them 

 stealthily into town. When I succeed in obtain- 

 ing one, I will send him to you, if you wish. If 

 they will not beat your neighbor Bemeni's Berk- 

 shires in hearing down the scales, they certainly 

 will in rmtning. Leeches put up for market, sell 

 here for $14 per 1000. 



Well, I rind I have written you a long, miscel- 

 laneous letter, without touching upon half the 

 subjects I designed to. As to the modus operandi 

 of tilling the soil, sowing and planting, and har- 

 vesting the various crops— the qualities of soil, 

 and many other like matters— I shall have to de- 

 fer a description of them until another time ; if, 

 perchance, yon and your readers are not sated 

 with a perusal of this lengthy, disjointed letter, 

 which 1 have been obliged to dash off in great 

 haste, without regard to method or systematic 

 arrangement. 



I must, however, before closing, notwithstand- 

 ing its irrelevance, tell you of a self resurrection 

 which took place here the other day. Some two 

 or three weeks since, while passing across the 

 soco, or market place, 1 saw a troop of Moorish 

 cavalry winding their way up the crooked road 

 leading from the beach ; after them and with 

 another detachment of cavalry in the rear, came 

 about one hundred prisoners, on foot, marching 

 in single file, with a long, heavy chain extending 



