--_Goldsmith._
Early morning found the Tuesday market in full swing, and the town of
Hanchen already astir in honour of the occasion. To realise the importance
of the weekly gathering, it is well to remember that a market in the
country here is the only substitute for the bazaar of the towns. Every
douar within a ten-mile radius of Hanchen sends men and women to the
Tuesday market to buy and sell. So it befell that the hillside slope,
which was bare on the previous afternoon, hummed now like a hive, and was
well nigh as crowded. Rough tents of goats' or camels'-hair cloth
sheltered everything likely to appeal to the native mind and
resources,--tea, sugar, woollen and cotton goods, pottery, sieves,
padlocks, and nails being to all appearance the goods most sought after by
the country Moor. Quite a brisk demand for candles prevailed; they were
highly-coloured things, thick at the base and tapering to the wick. There
was a good sale too for native butter, that needed careful straining
before it could be eaten with comfort, and there were eggs in plenty,
fetching from twopence to threepence the dozen, a high price for Morocco,
and brought about by the export trade that has developed so rapidly in the
last few years.
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