File:Artists and Arabs - or, sketching in sunshine (1870) (14753054226).jpg

Identifier: artistsarabsorsk1870blac (find matches)
Title: Artists and Arabs : or, sketching in sunshine
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Blackburn, Henry, 1830-1897
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Sampson Low, Son, and Marston
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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rave silent salutation when we took N 90 ARTISTS AND ARABS. Chap. V. our places, and another when we left, but wenever got much further with our unknown neigh-bours. If we can imagine a coterie in a smallpolitical club, where the open discussion of poli-tics is, with one consent, tabooed for fear of adisturbance, and where the most frolicsome of itsmembers play at chess for relaxation, we shall getsome notion of the state of absolute decorumwhich existed in our little cafS maure. It was very quaint. The memory of the gravequiet faces of these most polite Moorish gentle-men, looking so smooth and clean in their whitebournouses, seated solemnly doing nothing,haunts us to this day. Years elapsed betweenour first and last visit to our favourite street, yetthere they were when we came again, still doingnothing in a row; and opposite to them, themerchants who do no trade, also sitting in theiraccustomed places, surrounded with the same oldwares. There was the same old negro in a dark corner
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A LIFE STUDY Chap. V. MOORISH CAFES. 91 making coffee, and handing it to the same cus-tomers, sitting in the same places, in the samedream. There is certainly both art and mystery indoing nothing well which these men achieve intheir peculiar lives; here they sit for years toge-ther, silently waiting, without a trace of boredomon their faces, and without exhibiting a gestureof impatience. They—the gentlemen in thecafe on the right hand—have saved up moneyenough to keep life together, they have for everrenounced work, and can look on with compla-cency at their poorer brethren. They have theirtraditions, their faith, their romance of life, andthe curious belief before alluded to, that if theyfear God and Mahomet, and sit here long enough,they will one day be sent for to Spain, to re-people the houses where their fathers dwelt. This corner is the one par excellence., wherethe Moors sit and wait. There is the wall ofwailing at Jerusalem; there is the street of wait- 92 ARTISTS AND ARAB

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