IT was at Mazagan that Nora and Elizabeth saw the inside of a real Moorish home, for it happened that the favorite wife of their guide was very ill, and he had asked Dr. Carson to come and see her.
The guide's plan was that all the ladies of the party should go with the doctor into the sick room, while the men waited elsewhere, but this did not please either the doctor or the ladies; so the doctor went in alone with the husband. He had quite a shock when he began to examine his patient, for her body had been stained black, and his first thought was that she had black typhus, a very dreadful disease. But he soon found out his mistake, and told the man to come to the boat for some medicine.
Meanwhile the ladies had joined the men passengers in another room, where they had been entertained by several Moorish women. One of these was young, with lovely dark eyes, and refined features, very different from the type of women they had come across in the streets. Her dress of various colored muslins suited her to perfection, and as she came forward and with native grace shook hands and wished the visitors "Good-morning," they could not help admiring her beauty.
There was very little furniture in the room, just a good-sized bed with colored bedclothes, and a few rugs on the floor.
The whole arrangement of the house was different from that of an English home. To begin with, inside the front door was a storeroom for provender; then came an inner courtyard where were a donkey and two fat, horned sheep, the latter, poor things, waiting for the coming slaughter of the "Feast of Sheep.” A staircase went up one side of the square enclosure, and a narrow landing ran round three sides of it, out of which opened the women's rooms.
Whether the poor woman recovered or not they never heard, but the doctor did not think her case hopeless, although she really was, as her husband had feared, very ill.
Among the many interesting things seen at Mazagan was a native school. The room was open to the street, and about half-a-dozen lads were seated, face to the wall, repeating their lesson aloud, possibly a passage from the Koran. The schoolmaster was an old man with a very genial countenance, he seemed to like having his school inspected, and of course the boys enjoyed it very much, and did not keep their faces turned to the wall quite so strictly as they were supposed to do.
The tide was kind to the travelers on their return journey, and they stepped from the wharf into the boat, waving a farewell to the natives grouped on the little pierhead to see them off. They found embarkation going on busily aboard, for there were several thousand cases of eggs to be stowed away before the ship started that night. It was nearly eleven o'clock before the tired men had finished, and the Moors were hoarse from scolding and chattering long before then, though they had breath left for an unmelodious song as they pulled off for home.
The three friends had stood on deck for some time during the evening, watching the men put one of the heavy hatches back into its place. Just at the critical moment, as it was dropped, one of the Moors failed to get his hand away in time, and had one of his fingers badly hurt. Another Moor, standing near, at once took charge of him with sympathetic concern, which was quite pleasant to see, and the cry of "Ingleesh doctor, Ingleesh doctor!" was raised. Happily Dr. Carson was close at hand, and the injured finger was promptly attended to.