Mahamed always paid them what they asked, and got his commission from them later, as a guide should; but Isaac would storm and finally beat them down one-half. Isaac can be found at the Calpe Hotel, and is welcome to whatever this notice may be worth to him. [Illustration: A WOMAN OF TANGIER] I had read in books on Morocco and had been given to understand that when you were told that the price of anything in a bazar was worth three dollars, you should offer one, and that then the Moor would cry aloud to Allah to take note of the insult, and would ask you to sit down and have a cup of coffee, and that he would then beat you up and you would beat him down, and that at the end of two or three hours you would get what you wanted for two dollars. It struck me that this, if one had several months to spare and wanted anything badly enough, might be rather amusing. The first thing I saw that I wanted badly was a long gun, for which the Moor asked me twelve dollars. I offered him eight. I then waited to see him tear his beard and unwrap his turban and cry aloud to Allah; but he did none of these things. He merely put the gun back in its place and continued the conversation, which I had so flippantly interrupted, with a long-bearded friend. And no further remarks on my part affected him in the least, and I was forced to go away feeling very much ashamed and very mean. The next day a man at the hotel brought in the gun, having paid fourteen dollars for it, and said he would not sell it for fifty. We would pay much more than that for it at home, which shows that you cannot always follow guide-books. There are only five things the guides take you to see in Tangier--the cafe chantant, the governor's palace, the prisons, and the harem, to which men are not admitted. They also take you to see the markets, but you can see them for yourself. The markets are bare, open places covered with stones and lined with bazars, and on market-days peopled with thousands of muffled figures selling or trying to sell herbs and eggs and everything else that is eatable, from dates to haunches of mutton. It is a wonderfully picturesque sight, with the sun trickling through the palm-leaf mats overhead on the piles of yellow melons at your feet, and with strings of camels dislocating their countenances over their grain, and dancing-men and snake-charmers and story-tellers, as eloquent as actors, clamoring on every side.