Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
All the wealth he has extorted has been taken away from him by our Master, and he will see no more light. Twenty or more of these women are of his house." Now each dilal has his people sorted out, and the procession begins. Followed by their bargains the dilals march round and round the market, and I understand why the dust was laid before the procession commenced.
Small wonder if the younger women shrink, and if the black visage seems to take on a tint of ashen grey, when a buyer, whose face is an open defiance of the ten commandments, calls upon the dilal to halt, and, picking one out as though she had been one of a flock of sheep, handles her as a butcher would, examining teeth and muscles, and questioning her and the dilal very closely about past history and present health.
Even the water-carrier from the Sus country, who has been jingling his bright bowls together since the market opened, is moved to compassion, for while two old women are standing behind their dilal, who is talking to a client about their reserve price, I see him give them a free draught from his goat-skin water-barrel, and this kind action seems to do something to freshen the place, just as the mint and the roses of the gardeners freshen the alleys near the Kaisariyah in the heart of the city.
There are men and women who can no longer walk upright, however the dilal may insist; there are others of middle age, with years of active service before them; there are young men full of vigour and youth, fit for the fields, and young women, moving for once unveiled yet unrebuked, who will pass at once to the hareem.
She is not ill-favoured, but she is poor and thin. Nevertheless say one dollar more," says the Moor. "The praise to Allah, who made the world," says the dilal piously, and hurries round the ring, saying that the price of the child is now thirty-six dollars, and calling upon the buyers to go higher.
She is of kaid Abdeslam's household, though he bought her a few weeks before his fall, and she must be sold. But the dilal can give no warranty, for nobody knows her sickness. She is one of the slaves who are bought by the dealers for the rock salt of El Djouf." Happily the woman seems too dull or too ill to feel her own position.
Once again the storks from the saint's tomb pass over the market in large wide flight, as though to tell the story of the joy of freedom. It is the time of the evening promenade. The sun is setting rapidly and the sale is nearly at an end. "Forty-one dollars forty-one," cries the dilal at whose heels the one young and pretty woman who has not found a buyer limps painfully.
"Ah, Tsamanni," says my gossip from the Atlas to the big dilal who led the prayers, and is in special charge of the children for sale, "I will speak to this one," and Tsamanni pushes a tiny little girl into his arms. The child kisses the speaker's hand. Not at all unkindly the Moor takes his critical survey, and Tsamanni enlarges upon her merits.
The dilal announces the last price offered; a man who wishes to buy must raise it, and, if none will go better, he secures the bargain. A commission on all goods sold is taken at the door of the market by the municipal authorities. I notice on these afternoons the different aspects of the three classes represented in the bazaar.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking