The boys of
Hanchen were doing brisk business in the brass cases of cartridges that
had been fired on the previous day, and without a doubt the story of the
wonders of a repeating gun lost nothing in the telling.
[Illustration: THE SNAKE-CHARMER]
There was no interval for rest when the hours of greatest heat came round.
Late arrivals who travelled in on mule- or donkey-back renewed business
when it slackened, and brought fresh goods to be sold or exchanged. The
"Sons of Lions" had broken up the market at Sidi el Muktar on the previous
Friday before it was properly concluded, and many natives, disappointed
there, had come out to Hanchen to do their business, until there seemed to
be nothing in any stall that lacked buyers. Even the old man who had a
heap of scrap-iron when the market opened had sold every piece of it by
four o'clock, though it would have puzzled a European to find any use for
such rubbish. The itinerant mender of slippers was hard at work with three
young lads, and I never saw any one of the party idle. Hawks and corbies
fluttered over the butcher's ground, and I noticed a vulture in the deep
vault of the sky. Pariah dogs would clear every bit of refuse from the
ground before another day dawned, and in their nasty fashion would serve
their country, for the weather was very hot and the odours were
overpowering.
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