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Updated: May 3, 2025
The last thing Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli showed us was his hummum, cunningly arranged to flank the kitchen fire at the back. A tiny room; but four of his wives and slaves could, he explained, take their bath in it at once. There was a small stone slab inside as a seat, and hot air came in by means of a pipe in one corner.
Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli poured out tea with a great elevation of the teapot, raising his arm and showing greens and blues mixed to perfection underneath his k`sa a white woollen or silk robe worn only by gentlemen which, semi-transparent and gauze-like, fell in white waves over his shoulders on to the divan.
Nevertheless, the wives always contrive to peep out of some loophole and see all there is to be seen. Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli received us all three alone, as a matter of course, and led us upstairs to his best room. Like many others among the better class of Moors, our host had a shop and himself sold groceries.
No two brothers, both in ministerial offices at Court, would dream of sitting down and eating together without precautions beforehand, on account of the marked pieces in the dish. One brother, as he dines, may invite the other, who happens to enter, to join him in the meal; but he will reply, "I have already dined." He dare not. Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli talked away in Arabic to Mr.
He seldom travels with less than thirty thousand followers; and, supposing he is passing through a turbulent tribe, fights his way as he goes, leaving ruin and desolation behind. "They make a desert, and they call it peace." Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli had travelled considerably farther afield than his sovereign; he knew Genoa, Marseilles, Egypt, and of course Mecca.
Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, barely forty years old by his own account, had a white beard and moustache, no wrinkles, eyes of mild blue and benign expression, equally guileless and unfathomable. Talking in Arabic to Mr.
Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, sitting on his heels in front of his tea-table, making tea with his thin brown hands, and presiding over it all with true Oriental dignity, was a veritable Moses or Aaron reincarnated.
At the same time his sister is the wife of one of the Ministers; and as there is no respect of persons in Morocco, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli might be called upon himself any day to fill a high official position, and be obliged to go, raising money, if he had not wherewithal to support the post, which, if a lucrative one, would soon repay the outlay.
Finally, Amanda's step, with a great plate of hot toast and a tall tin coffee-pot: black coffee was the best part of the meal. A day or two after settling into the fonda we were asked to our first entertainment in a Moorish house. Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli wanted Mr. Bewicke and ourselves to "tea" with him.
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