She informed me that she had been married to a Genoese, the master of a felouk which passed between Gibraltar and Tangier, who had been dead about four years, leaving her with a family of four children, the eldest of which was a lad of thirteen; that she had experienced great difficulty in providing for her family and herself since the death of her husband, but that Providence had raised her up a few excellent friends, especially the British consul; that besides letting lodgings to such travellers as myself, she made bread which was in high esteem with the Moors, and that she was likewise in partnership in the sale of liquors with an old Genoese. She added that this last person lived below in one of the apartments; that he was a man of great ability and much learning, but that she believed he was occasionally somewhat touched here, pointing with her finger to her forehead, and she therefore hoped that I would not be offended at anything extraordinary in his language or behaviour. She then left me, as she said, to give orders for my breakfast; whereupon the Jewish domestic, who had accompanied me from the consul, finding that I was established in the house, departed. I speedily sat down to breakfast in an apartment on the left side of the little _wustuddur_; the fare was excellent: tea, fried fish, eggs, and grapes, not forgetting the celebrated bread of Joanna Correa. I was waited upon by a tall Jewish youth of about twenty years, who informed me that his name was Hayim Ben Attar, {357a} that he was a native of Fez, from whence his parents brought him at a very early age to Tangier, where he had passed the greater part of his life principally in the service of Joanna Correa, waiting upon those who, like myself, lodged in the house. I had completed my meal, and was seated in the little court, when I heard in the apartment opposite to that in which I had breakfasted several sighs, which were succeeded by as many groans, and then came _Ave Maria_, _gratiâ plena_, _ora pro me_, {357b} and finally a croaking voice chanted— “Gentem auferte perfidam Credentium de finibus, Ut Christo laudes debitas Persolvamus alacriter.” {357c} “That is the old Genoese,” whispered Hayim Ben Attar, “praying to his God, which he always does with particular devotion when he happens to have gone to bed the preceding evening rather in liquor. He has in his room a picture of _Maria Buckra_, before which he generally burns a taper, and on her account he will never permit me to enter his apartment. He once caught me looking at her, and I thought he would have killed me; and since then he always keeps his chamber locked, and carries the key in his pocket when he goes out. He hates both Jew and Moor, and says that he is now living amongst them for his sins.” “They do not place tapers before pictures,” said I, and strolled forth to see the wonders of the land. CHAPTER LVI.