Identifier: travelsinatlasso00thom (find matches)
Title: Travels in the Atlas and southern Morocco. A narrative of exploration
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Thomson, Joseph, 1858-1895
Subjects: Morocco -- Description and travel Atlas Mountains
Publisher: New York : Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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e the artisan at work turning out the handsomelyembroidered bags which are the indispensable hold-allsof the pocketless Moor. Others are at work on theplain yellow slippers which cover the feet of the men,or the richly embroidered red ones worn by the ladies.Most interesting is it, however, to watch the methodof ornamenting the leather for cushions, tray-mats,kief-pouches, &c. By the simj^le process of cuttingout the intricate patterns in which the Moor delightson red, green, or lavender coloured leather, and pick-ing off the epidermis or outer skin, the desired resultis produced, as is shown in the illustration of theleather tray-mat. This class of artistic work is donewith great rapidity. Only a few guiding lines andcircles are drawn, and then, without further sketchingin, the workman commences with a chisel like a graverstool, and with skilled hand cuts out his arabesques.Then there are the saddlemakers quarters, the tanners,the dyers, the cobblers, where the seemingly irrepar-
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EXTKANCE TO OXE OF THE BUSINESS QlARTEKS, .MAHAK.SH. Page 361. MAKAKSH. 361 able is repaired ; the blacksmitlis, where horses andmules are being shod, with their owners standing by.At places we pass long lines of Jewish women mend-ing shirts and sewing on buttons for bachelors andtravellers wliil. they wait. Everywhere is sub-dued animation, and a deprecating air of haste, as ofmen apologising for being in a hurry. Among the mean houses and booths shaded byvine or mat the fundahs and quarters of the well-to-do merchants, who deal in the more valuable clothsand goods, rise with a certain prosperous and comfort-able air. Many of them have no small pretension tostyle and magnificence, their entrance doorways open-ing into w^ell-built and well-roofed arcades, on eitherside of which are the cells of the various merchants, whosit doubled up among their merchandise like animatedBurmese gods. Some of the^Q fundahs are built in thefashion of a house surrounding an open court, the lowerrooms be

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