Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

At this day, when an Eastern prince sends gifts to European sovereigns, there are shawls to the value of thousands of pounds, together with jewels, perfumes, and wild beasts, and valuable horses; just as was done in the days of the Pharaohs, as the paintings on Egyptian tombs show us at this day. And the subjects of sovereigns have as much liking for shawls as any queen. At the Russian Court, the ladies judge one another by their shawls as by their diamonds. In France, the bridegroom wins favor by a judicious gift of this kind. In Cairo and Damascus, the gift of a shawl will cause almost as much heart-burning in the harem as the introduction of a new wife. In England, the daughter of the house spends the whole of her first quarter’s allowance in the purchase of a shawl. The Paris grisette and the London dressmaker go to their work with the little shawl pinned neatly at the waist. The lost gin-drinker covers her rags with the remnants of the shawl of better days. The farmer’s daughter buys a white cotton shawl, with a gay border, for her wedding; and it washes and dyes until, having wrapped all her babies in turn, it is finally dyed black to signalize her widowhood. The maiden aunt, growing elderly, takes to wearing a shawl in the house in mid-winter; and the granny would no more think of going without it at any season than without her cap. When son or grandson comes home from travel, far or near, his present is a new shawl, which she puts on with deep consideration, parting with the old one with a sigh. The Manchester or Birmingham factory-girl buys a gay shawl on credit, wears it on Sunday, puts it in pawn on Monday morning, and takes it out again on Saturday night for another Sunday’s wear, and so on, until she has wasted money that would have bought her a good wardrobe. Thus, from China round the world to Oregon, and from the queen down to the pauper, is the shawl the symbol of woman’s taste and condition. Whence come all these shawls? For it is clear that the supply which arrives from Asia – over bleak continents and wide oceans – can only be for the rich and great. Some of the shawls from Bokhara sell, in the market on the Russian frontier, for two thousand four hundred pounds each. Whence come the hundred thousand shawls that the women of Great Britain purchase every year?

Some of the richest that our ladies wear are from Lyons; and the French taste is so highly esteemed, that our principal manufacturers go to Lyons once or twice a year for specimens and patterns. Some of our greatest ladies of all, even the queen and certain duchesses and countesses offer to our chief manufacturers a sight of their treasures from India, their Cashmeres and other shawls, from a patriotic desire for the improvement of our English patterns. From these, the manufacturers of Norwich and Paisley devise such beautiful things that, but for the unaccountable and unrivaled superiority of the Orientals in the production of this particular article, we should be all satisfaction and admiration. The common cotton shawls, continually lessening in number, worn by women of the working-classes, are made at Manchester, and wherever the cotton manufacture is instituted. In order to study the production of British shawls in perfection, one should visit the Norwich or Paisley manufactures.

If any article of dress could be immutable, it would be the shawl – designed for eternity in the unchanging East – copied from patterns which are the heirloom of a caste – and woven by fatalists, to be worn by adorers of the ancient garment, who resent the idea of the smallest change. Yet has the day arrived which exhibits the manufacture of three distinct kinds of shawls in Paisley. There is the genuine woven shawl with its Asiatic patterns; and there is that which is called a shawl for convenience, but which has nothing Asiatic about it: the tartan – which name is given not only to the checks of divers colors which signify so much to the Scottish eye, but to any kind of mixed or mottled colors and fabric – woven in squares or lengths to cover the shoulder. The third kind is quite modern: the showy, slight and elegant printed shawl, derived from Lyons, and now daily rising in favor. The woven kind is the oldest in Paisley. The tartan kind was introduced from Stirlingshire – without injury to Stirlingshire – which makes as many as ever, but to the great benefit of Paisley. The printed kind has been made about six years, and it is by far the greatest and most expanding manufacture. The most devoted worshipers of the genuine shawl can hardly wonder at this, considering the love of change that is inherent in ladies who dress well, and the difference of cost. A genuine shawl lasts a quarter of a lifetime. Ordinary purchasers give from one pound to ten pounds for one, and can give more if they desire a very superior shawl: a process which it is not convenient to repeat every two or three years. The handsomest printed shawls, meantime, can be had for two pounds, and they will last two years; by the end of which time, probably, the wearer has a mind for something new. The time required for the production answers pretty accurately to these circumstances. It takes a week to weave a shawl of the genuine sort – in the same time, ten or twelve of the tartan or plaid, and twenty or thirty of the printed can be produced.

The processes employed for these three kinds of shawls are wholly different; and we will therefore look at them separately, though we saw them, in fact, under the same roof. As for the tartan shawls, there is no need to enlarge upon them, as their production is much like that of any other kind of variegated cloth. We need mention only one fact in regard to them, which is, however, very noticeable, the recent invention of a machine by which vast time and labor are saved. As we all know, the fringes of cloth shawls are twisted – some threads being twisted together in one direction, and then two of these twists being twisted in the opposite direction. Till a month ago this work was done by girls, in not the pleasantest way, either to themselves or the purchaser, by their wetting their hands from their own mouths, and twisting the threads between their palms. The machine does, in a second of time, the work of fourteen pairs of hands; that is, as two girls attend it, there is a saving of twelve pairs of hands and some portion of time, and the work is done with thorough certainty and perfection; whereas, under the old method, for one girl who could do the work well, there might be several who did it indifferently or ill. The machine – invented by Mr. Hutchinson – must be seen to be understood; for there is no giving an idea, by description, of the nicety with which the brass tongues rise to lift up the threads and to twist them; then throw them together, and rub them against the leather-covered shafts, which – instead of human palms – twist them in the opposite direction. In seeing this machine the old amazement recurs at the size, complication, and dignity of an instrument contrived for so simple a purpose. The dignity, however, resides not in the magnitude of the office, but in the saving of time and human labor.

Of the other two kinds of shawls, which shall we look at first? Let it be the true and venerable woven shawl.

The wool is Australian or German – chiefly Australian. It comes in the form of yarn from Bradford, in hanks which are any thing but white, so that they have first to be washed. Of the washing, dyeing, and warping we need not speak, as they are much the same to the observer’s – and therefore to the reader’s – eye as the preparation of yarns for carpets in Kendal, and of silk for ribbons in Coventry. While the washing and drying, and the dyeing and drying again, are proceeding, the higher labor of preparing the pattern is advancing.

But how much of the lower kind of work can be done during the slow elaboration of the higher? It really requires some patience and fortitude even to witness the mighty task of composing and preparing the pattern of an elaborate shawl. Let the reader study any three square inches of a good shawl border; let the threads be counted, and the colors, and the twists and turnings of the pattern, and then let it be remembered that the general form has to be invented, and the subdivisions, and the details within each form, and the filling up of the spaces between, and the colors – as a whole, and in each particular; and that, before the material can be arranged for the weaving, every separate stitch (so to speak) must be painted down on paper, in its right place. Is it not bewildering to think of? – Much more bewildering and imposing is it to see. As for the first sketch of the design, that is all very pretty; and, the strain on the faculties not being cognizable by the stranger, is easy enough.

There goes the artist-pencil – tracing waving lines and elegant forms, giving no more notion of the operations within than the hands of a clock do of the complication of the works. Formerly, the employers put two or three good foreign patterns into the artist’s hands, and said – “Make a new pattern out of these.” Now that we have schools of design, and more accessible specimens of art, the direction is given without the aids – “Make a new pattern,” and the artist sits down with nothing before him but pencil and paper – unless, indeed, he finds aids for himself in wild flowers, and other such instructors in beauty of form and color. By degrees, the different parts of the pattern shape themselves out, and combine – the centre groups with the ends, and the ends grow out into the sides with a natural and graceful transition. Then the portions, properly outlined, are delivered to the colorers, who cover the drawing with oiled paper, and begin to paint. It would not do to color the outlined drawing, because there are no outlines in the woven fabric. It is dazzling only to look upon. Much less minute is the transferring to the diced paper which is the real working pattern. The separate portions of the finished pattern of a single shawl, when laid on the floor, would cover the carpet of a large drawing-room. The taking down such a pattern upon paper occupies four months.

The weaving is done either by “lashing” or from Jacquard cards. The Jacquard loom answers for the eternal patterns, and the “lashing” method suffices for those which are not likely to be repeated. The man seated at the “piano-machine,” playing on a sort of keys from the colored pattern stuck up before his eyes, is punching the Jacquard cards, which are then transferred in their order to the lacing-machine, where they are strung together by boys into that series which is to operate upon the warp in the weaving, lifting up the right threads for the shuttle to pass under to form the pattern, as in other more familiar manufactures. The “lashing” is read off from the pattern, too, in the same way as with carpet patterns at Kendal; so many threads being taken up and interlaced with twine for a red stitch, and then so many more for a green, and so on. Boys then fasten each symbol of a hue to a netting of whipcord, by that tail of the netting which, by its knots, signifies that particular hue; so that, when the weaving comes to be done, the boy, pulling the symbolic cord, raises the threads of the warp – green, blue, or other – which are required for that throw of the shuttle. Thus the work is really all done before-hand, except the mere putting together of the threads; done, moreover, by any body but the weaver, who is – to say the truth – a mere shuttle-throwing machine. The poor man does not even see and know what he is doing. The wrong side of the shawl is uppermost – and not even such a wrong side as we see, which gives some notion of the pattern on the other. Previous to cutting, the wrong side of a shawl is a loose surface of floating threads of all colors; of the threads, in fact, which are thrown out of the pattern, and destined to be cut away and given to the papermakers to make coarse gray paper. One pities the weaver, who sits all day long throwing the shuttle, while the boy at the end of his loom pulls the cords which make the pattern, and throw up nothing but refuse to the eye. He has not even the relief of stopping to roll up what he has done; for a little machine is now attached to his loom, which saves the necessity of stopping for any such purpose. It is called “the up-taking motion.” By it a few little cogwheels are set to turn one another, and, finally, the roller, on which the woven fabric is wound as finished.

The bundles of weaving-strings and netting which regulate the pattern, are called “flowers.” From the quantity of labor and skill wrought up in their arrangement, they are very valuable. A pile of them, on a small table, were, as we were assured, worth one thousand pounds. We may regard each as the soul or spirit of the shawl – not creating its material, but animating it with character, personality, and beauty. We have said that it takes a man a week to weave a shawl: but this means a “long” shawl, and not a “square.” The square remain our favorites; but the female world does not seem to be of our mind. It is true the symmetry of the pattern is spoiled when the white centre hangs over one shoulder. It is true, the “longs” are heavy and very warm, from being twice doubled. But they have one advantage, which ladies hold to compensate for those difficulties; they can be folded to any size, and therefore to suit any figure – tall or short, stout or thin. We are assured that, for one square shawl that is sold, there are a hundred “longs.”

A capital machine now intervenes, with its labor-saving power; this time of French invention. Formerly, it took two girls a whole day to cut off the refuse threads from the back of a shawl. But this machine, superintended by a man, does it in a minute and a half. A horizontal blade is traversed by spiral blades fixed on a cylinder, the revolving of which gives to the blades the action of a pair of scissors. The man’s office is to put in the shawl, set the machine going, and to beat down the refuse as fast as it is cut off.

The upper surface of the shawl remains somewhat rough – rough enough to become soon a rather dirty article of dress, from the dust which it would catch up and retain. It is therefore smoothed by singing. This very offensive process is performed by a man who must have gone through a severe discipline before he could endure his business. He heats his iron (which is like a very large, heavy knife, turned up at the end) red hot, spreads the shawl on a table rather larger than itself, and passes the red-hot iron over the surface, with an even and not very rapid movement. What would that Egyptian dragoman have said, who, being asked to iron out an English clergyman’s white ducks, burned off the right leg with the first touch of his box-iron? That box-iron was not red-hot, nor any thing like it; yet there is no such destruction here. There is only the brown dust fizzing. Pah! that’s enough! let us go somewhere else.

In a light, upper room, women and girls are at work, sitting on low stools, each with a shawl stretched tightly over her knees. Some of these are darning, with the utmost nicety, any cracks, thin places, or “faults” in the fabric; darning each in its exact color. Some are putting silk fringes upon the printed shawls, tacking them in with a needle, measuring each length by eye and touch, and then knotting, or, as it is called, “netting” the lengths by cross-ties. One diminutive girl of nearly ten, is doing this with wonderful quickness, as she sits by her mother’s knee. The girls do not come to work before this age; nor the boys before twelve. In other rooms, women are seated at tables, or leaning over them, twisting the fringes of plaid shawls, or picking out knots and blemishes with pincers, and brushing all clean, and then folding them, with sheets of stiff pasteboard between, ready for the final pressure in the hydraulic press, which makes them fit for the shop.

The fabric for the printed shawls is light and thin, in comparison with the woven. The thinness is various; from the barège to the lightest gossamer that will bear the pressure of the block. The whole importance of the production consists in printing; for the fabric is simple and common enough. A man can weave ten yards per day of the barège; and the silk gauze, striped or plain, requires no particular remark.

The designing is done with the same pains and care as for the genuine shawl, but the range of subjects is larger. While something of the Oriental character of the shawl patterns must be preserved, much of the beauty of French figured silks and brocades and embroidery may be admitted. Thus the designing and coloring-rooms contain much that pleases the eye, though one does not see there the means and appliances which fill some apartment or another of Birmingham factories – the casts from the antique, the volumes of plates, the flower in water, and so on. The preparation of the blocks for printing, and yet more the application of them, reminded us of the paper-staining, which we had certainly never thought of before in connection with shawls. The wood used is lime-wood. Some of the blocks are chiseled and picked out, like those of the paper-stainer. The cast-blocks are more curious. A punch is used, the point or needle of which is kept hot by a flame, from which the workman’s head is defended by a shield of metal. He burns holes by puncturing with this hot needle along all the outlines of the block he holds in his hands, much as a little child pricks outlines on paper on a horse-hair chair-bottom. There is a groove along the face of each block, to allow the metal to run in. The burned blocks are screwed tight in a press, their joined tops forming a saucer, into which the molten metal (composed of tin, bismuth and lead) is poured. In it goes, and down the grooves, penetrating into all the burnt holes; and, of course, when cool, furnishing a cast of the patterns desired, in the form of upright thorns or spikes on a metallic ground or plate. These plates are filed smooth at the back, and fixed on wood, and you have the blocks ready to print from; one representing one color, another another, and so on, till the plates for a single shawl of many colors may mount up in value to a very large sum.

Before printing, the fabric has been well washed; the barège being passed, by machinery, over cylinders which apply and squeeze out a wash of soap, soda, and glue. All roughness had previously been removed by a “cropping” machine. After drying, it comes to the printing-table, where it is treated much like a paper-hanging. This is all very well; but what is to be done in case of a shower of rain? a not improbable incident in the life of a shawl. A paper-hanging would not stand a driving rain. Are ladies imposed upon in this matter, when they are offered a gay-printed shawl as wearable out of doors? By no means. Nobody knows how it is, but the fact is certain, that a good steaming, at a tremendous heat, fixes the colors by some chemical action, without in the least hurting their lustre: so the shawls go into the steaming-box, and come out of it able to bear as many washings as you please, without any change of color. After drying, in a heat of one hundred and ten degrees, they go up stairs to be surveyed, fringed, folded and pressed.

It seems a pity that the fat, easy, lazy Bokharian, and the slim, lithe, patient Hindoo, should not come to Paisley, and see how shawls are made there. To the one, shaving his camel on the plain, and the other, throwing his antique shuttle under the palm, how strange would be the noise, and the stench, and the speed, and the numbers employed, and the amount of production! To the one, it may be the work of years to furnish to the traveling merchant strips of eight inches wide, enough to make a shawl; and to the other, the production of such an article is an event in life; while here, at Paisley, if the pattern requires months, the weaving of the most genuine and valuable kind occupies only a week. We do not believe that the simple and patient Oriental will be driven out of the market by us, because there is no promise, at present, of our overtaking their excellence. We hope there will be room in the world of fashion for them and us forever – (the “forever” of that world.) We shall not go back to their methods, and it is not very likely that they should come up to ours; so we shall probably each go on in our own way, which is what everybody likes best.

AMONG THE MOORS

THE LEGEND OF THE CASTLE

Notwithstanding its proximity to Gibraltar, and the constant intercourse and commerce kept up with Europeans, Tangier preserves its primitive appearance and bears the stamp of a thoroughly Moorish town. Like most Moslem cities it is surrounded by beautiful gardens, and the ride of a few miles will reward the tourist with some very pretty scenery. There is work, too, for the antiquary round about Tangier. Ruins of cities, remains of a Roman aqueduct, traces of the Portuguese dominion, strange tombs of warrior saints who fell in battle, are to be visited. To the north, also, near the sea, there stand the ruins of an old castle, famous as having once been the retreat of a bold chieftain who rebelled against the sultan. This ruin, with portions of its massive outer wall yet standing, covers a large extent of ground, and used frequently to be the destination of my morning rides. Day after day, when riding listlessly through the neighboring lanes, between hedges of the aloe and prickly pear, my horse paused at the old castle, and I went in to raise a panic among bats and owls that were disturbed by my wandering among its gloomy passages and desolate old halls.

A very matter-of-fact soldier had, for a long time, been the attendant on our rides – for it is unsafe to trespass far beyond the town without a guard; this gentleman had not a word wherewith to satisfy my curiosity, or gratify my feminine desire to provide every ruin with its legend. A change of guide, however, brought me at last under the shadow of a charming fellow, a battered, tale-telling old hunter, named Shebah, or the Lion, no doubt from his courage. His conversation was stocked largely with magicians, genii, and enchanted castles, which he built up with much gorgeousness of detail, yet speaking always with a certain dignified simplicity and a peculiarity of idiom that gave a piquant relish to the richness of the diet upon which my ears were put.

One bright September morning, as a small party of us rested on a grassy spot on what perhaps had been the tilt-yard of the castle before-mentioned, enjoying a cool pic-nic breakfast, the old hunter sat cross-legged in our neighborhood, with his long gun beside him, and a knife glittering in his belt, looking with grave wistfulness at the sparkle of our wine, and wrestling mentally, perhaps, with the hard veto of his prophet. To console himself, he lifted up his voice and told us all he knew about surrounding objects, sliding eventually into what he called the Legend of the Castle. I really cannot repeat it after him in his own gorgeous words, that sounded very well upon his lips under the Moorish castle walls, but would trip less successfully from mine in England. I will tell the story as I can, beginning properly with Once upon a Time.

Once upon a time when this castle, now decayed, was a strong fortress, there dwelt in it a certain Arab chief named Muley ben Abel, alias Al Zagal, or the Valiant. Al Zagal’s valor was not tempered with mercy, and he was by no means universally esteemed by all who knew him. The two half-brothers of Al Zagal were, however, known as the Good Lords, and the public preference of these two brothers caused their sudden disappearance. They were followed out of the world by their father, Ibn Amir, when he was a man still in the prime of life. Al Zagal had, after this time, many fingers pointed at him, and became so greatly dreaded by the people that he was not unwilling to give them other cause for dread. He began accordingly to prey upon the country people, and the Sultan, being busy in a war with mountain tribes, had neither time nor inclination to put any check on his proceedings. So Al Zagal collected a troop of black warriors, with consciences of a like color with their skins, and levied black mail on all travelers and merchants as they passed on their way to Granada, “which then,” said the hunter, “our people possessed, and, by the blessing of Allah, will again possess.” The Moors faithfully believe that they shall in due time reconquer Spain; and many families of note, tracing descent from Moors of Granada, still keep the keys of houses, and the title-deeds of lands held by their ancestors, ready to be produced in the good time that is coming. Every Friday the Imaums in the mosque pray for the consummation so devoutly wished.

Al Zagal and his black guards did more mischief than a herd of wolves among the surrounding hamlets, and their den came to be called accordingly the Black Castle. The robbers would sweep by in the night, like a hot wind from the desert, and leave every thing destroyed upon their track.

Now it so happened that the shiek of a small mountain village, distant about half a day’s journey from the Black Castle, (Hamet al Hassan was his name,) had a fair daughter, the only child left to him by thirteen wives, and she was named Lindora. Lindora means light of the dawn; and the damsel was as soft, and quiet, and delightful as her godmother, Aurora. Necessarily she was, for is she not the heroine of the legend that was told us by the Moorish hunter under the Black Castle’s walls?

Hamet, the father, for the sake of peace and quietness, seeing how weak he was, paid a black mail to Al Zagal, that was collected on behalf of the castle, at fixed periods, by one of the chief’s swarthy followers. It happened that such a messenger one day chanced to behold Lindora when she returned from drawing water at the village well.

“Son of Al Hassan,” said the envoy, “give me, I pray thee, thy daughter to my wife, for the maid finds favor in my sight. I will befriend thee with my influence, and cause Al Zagal to remit this tribute.”

“Most worthy envoy of the most noble Al Zagal,” said the old man in reply, “many have asked Lindora at my hands in marriage, but she is betrothed to Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, my brother’s son; and when he returns from fighting for the sultan, I have promised that they shall be wedded. So even the marriage gifts are prepared against his coming. Wo is me! I have said it.”

But the same night, when the inmates of that mountain hamlet were asleep, a strong light fell upon their eyes, and shrieks and war-cries fell upon their ears, and they awoke to the slaughter, for the band of the Black Castle had come down, and fired the village. Young men fought, and women fled; but in the morning the hamlet was a ruin far behind the backs of the marauders, who drove sheep and oxen on the way before them, and with Lindora and her father in the middle of their band, marched back to the Black Castle, well content with the good stroke of business they had done.

Several weeks after that night, a young Moorish warrior, handsomely equipped, attended by about a dozen lances, galloped up-hill toward the ruin of Al Hassan’s tents. He was an extremely handsome man, you may be sure, because he is the hero of the legend. Not having expected to find any ruin on the spot, his first impression, when he saw no tents, was, that his father’s brother must have struck them, and removed into another neighborhood. Soon, however, he discovered marks of fire, and – by the beard of the Prophet! – blood. Need I say that the young man was Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, and that his agony at this discovery was dreadful? He sent his spears abroad in vain for tidings, and then turned his own horse’s head toward Tetuan, the nearest town.

Lindora was at this time, of course, in the Black Castle, imprisoned in a lonely tower. The old man, too old to be sold as a slave, would have been promptly dispatched, if the cries of Lindora for her father had not suggested that his life and presence were essential to the preservation of her beauty. The dark envoy was most instrumental in the securing of his safety, but Al Zagal having seen the maiden, who had been seized for his envoy’s satisfaction, was desirous, of course, as the dullest legend reader would perceive, to add her to the roll of his own wives.

When Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, knowing nothing of all this, reached Tetuan, he went to the house of Al Hadj Halek Ibn Abdallah, a famous marabout, and said, “Salaam on Aleekomm! Know, O holy man, that I am come to thee for news, the odor of which would be sweet unto my nostrils.” The wise man, having heard his question, was able, fortunately, to return an answer. And the youth said: “I will depart this hour again to Fez, and throw myself at the feet of the Prince of Believers to ask vengeance; and it shall come to pass that he shall grant me power to lead his warriors against Al Zagal, destroy his castle, and deliver Lindora from its walls; for the maiden loves me still,” he added, looking at the hilt of his dagger, in which a large opal glittered cheerfully. “Tabeeb, farewell!”

Lindora was at that time in her lonely tower, shrieking with but little intermission. Al Zagal appeared on the battlements, and leaning over, shouted to one of his followers: “Asharky, place thyself at the head of a score of lances, and ride the country through till thou findest a Tabeeb, for the daughter of Al Hassan is possessed.” The Tabeeb who was brought declared the maiden to be in the delirium of fever; so thereafter Al Zagal, who by no means desired that she should die, frequently paced the battlements in a moody way, invoking on her case the blessing of the Prophet.

One day he was awakened from such a reverie by the sound of distant tom-toms and cymbals, and looking up he saw the royal banner coming down the road from Fez. Bright arms of warriors glittered about it, and a dark crowd of country people, that had joined with the great army of the Sultan, was shouting his name; they were his debtors from the surrounding country, now resolved to take this advantageous opportunity of paying him the little things they owed. When the multitude had halted near the castle walls, a single horseman spurred out of the main body – a herald he was – summoning Muley ben Abel, alias Al Zagal, to surrender his castle and give up the prisoners therein, particularly Lindora and her father, otherwise the Lord Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, Caliph of the Sultan, was prepared in the Sultan’s name to lay siege to its walls. A valorous discussion followed, which was closed by a follower of Al Zagal, who, with a stone from a sling, struck the herald on the forehead, and unhorsed him. Then the siege commenced.

The siege was tedious, for the castle walls were thick, but as the black band was not accustomed to live peaceably on short provisions, it turned very blue when the wine failed, and became finally seditious. Nevertheless the siege was tedious, and Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar began to fear the approach of the rainy season and the departure of his peasant allies, when one day he saw, in strong relief against the morning sky, Lindora and her father led out chained upon the battlements of the Black Castle. Al Zagal had an offer of accommodation to suggest. If the siege were raised he would give up his captives for a ransom of a thousand mets-kal. If not, he would cut off their heads next morning, and throw them down into the camp.

This threw Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar into great perplexity, for his honor as a soldier and his desire as a lover, were played off unpleasantly against each other. While he still pondered in his tent, the tent curtain was drawn aside and the dark envoy entered. Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar knew the dark envoy well, although he did not know him as the first cause of Lindora’s misery: he knew him only as a doughty fighting man throughout the siege. What did the dark envoy want. “Son of Amar,” he said, “grant but a free pass to myself and a few companions, and the castle shall be delivered up to-night into your hands. Al Zagal has wronged me, and the sons of Allah are not able to forgive.”

“Can I believe this?”

“Fear not, Cedi; I will remain in this tent till my word has been fulfilled. To-night Al Zagal, having lulled and deceived thee by this morning’s offer, will make a sally with his whole band, and attempt to cut a way to safety for himself and for his captives through your unsuspicious ranks. He hopes to get beyond the mountains into Rif. His men will be divided into two bands, one headed by myself, the other by my brother, who will join against him at a given signal.”

“Fight thine own battles with Al Zagal,” said Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar; “I will have no traitor for ally.” The youth, nevertheless, profited by the dark envoy’s useful information, and disseminated it industriously throughout his camp. In the night, the castle gates having been thrown open, a band of horsemen passed the drawbridge stealthily with muffled hoofs, formed into rank, and placed their captives in the centre, intending to burst in their old way with a sudden cry upon the sleeping enemy. “By the beard of my father,” said Al Zagal, “we will yet teach the shepherds what it is to have a lion at bay.” He had not long spoken before the lances of the shepherds came upon him, and lances of his own troops also were turned against him. Seeing that he was betrayed, he closed with those men who were faithful to him round the captives, and endeavored to regain the castle; but the enemy possessed the path. There was a terrible fight, and Cedi Mohammed riding high among the torches, friends fought against friends, emirs, splendidly caparisoned on Arab steeds, engaged with half-clad members of the black band, on wiry mountain ponies. Al Zagal, through the tumult and the torch-light fighting desperately, succeeded with a few followers in forcing a way with Lindora back into the castle, of which a large part was already in the hands of the besiegers. He secured Lindora in a secret room, and then descending through dark vaults and passages to a magazine that had long been prepared for any such occasion, added arson to his other crimes. The savage horror of the scene was at its highest as the flames leaped their highest up into the night. The red blaze was a pleasant beacon-fire to men who, waking up by chance in distant places, said it must be the Black Castle that was then on fire, and so there would be peace again upon their tents now that the Black Castle was destroyed.

But among the blazing ruins the strife still went on. The band of Al Zagal had their lives to sell, and valued their lives dearly. “There is one chance more,” said Al Zagal to a gigantic black who had been unhorsed in the struggle; “let us mount the first horses we can get, and we may yet escape beyond the mountains into Rif.” Al Zagal had soon forced an emir from his charger, and was darting from the castle when the dark envoy confronted him. “Know me!” the chief said, “I am Al Zagal.” But the dark envoy struck him, bidding him die like a dog; and after a great struggle he did die, like a brave dog, fighting gallantly. But the dark envoy had fought for Lindora, and had made Lindora his war-cry in the act of treason. Down there came, therefore, in wrath, upon the head of the dark envoy the sword of Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar. There was another desperate encounter, and I suppose no shrewdness could discover which of the two combatants was killed.

Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar rushed, at great peril of his life, among the chambers of the burning castle seeking his Lindora. In the uppermost apartment of the western tower, still spared from the flames, he found her stretched upon a low divan, pale and disheveled, almost senseless. Her lover carried her among the ruins to a resting-place upon the trampled, blood-stained grass, and there under the fresh breeze of early morning she revived: “I am indeed saved by thy hand; O, my beloved, Allah hath heard my prayers, and great is my reward. To-morrow I sleep with my fathers and see thee no more.” The light of the dawn was on her face. “Lindora!” the youth cried, with a sudden fear; “Lindora, speak to me again!” He looked at the opal in his dagger, which for an instant shot forth rays, and then its light departed: it became a dull, dead stone. The soul of Lindora, light of the dawn, had left that couch of trampled grass and blood, and floated forth into the morning sky.

“And what became of her lover?” I inquired of the old hunter, who appeared disposed to make an end at this part of the tale, whereas I desire always to know distinctly what becomes of every one. We were told in reply, that some said he died at the storming of the castle, some said that he went to Granada and fought in a reckless way, became a great man, and never smiled and never married; but the old hunter himself inclined to think that he abandoned war, and being a caliph married largely, and escaped the observation of the world by being overmuch secluded in his harem.

We requested the old huntsman not to kill Lindora when he told the story next. He listened gravely, and replied, with more reproof in his looks than in his voice, that Lindora had become possessed – that is to say, mentally deranged – and in that state, according to his faith, she was regarded as a saint, and sacred to every good Moslem. It was, therefore, good that she should in that state be compensated for her troubles by a certain passage into heaven.

LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES

Were I to discuss, to describe, or even cursorily to touch on the social characteristics of any one of the numerous classes of Continental coffee-houses, I should require a book rather than a column. The subject is one so cosmopolitan, so intimately bound up with the progress of civilization, that, while ostensibly penning a paper on coffee-shops, I should be in reality writing a history of the manners, customs and social peculiarities of the peoples who were coffee-drinkers. So, seductive as are the temptations of Continental coffee-shops, I will not venture to touch upon them now. I will reserve for a more convenient opportunity the brilliant Parisian cafés, and the consideration of the influence they have had upon the progress of the decorative arts in France; I will reserve the coffee-houses of Germany where pipes and dominoes are the rule, and clean coffee-cups and clean waiters the exception; the cafés of Venice and Milan; the cafés and cafejis of Stamboul and Smyrna; the coffee-houses where there are concerts; where there are dramatic performances; where there are orchestras recruited by blind men; where there are dances and orgies, and feasts of cucumbers and hard eggs, as on the Port at Antwerp; where circulate massive white tureens of coffee considerably modified, or aggravated by schnaps, as at the great pilots’ coffee-house, the “Kœning Leopold” at Ostend.

Of the present state and position of coffee-shops in one country, I feel myself called upon, however, briefly to treat. The coffee-houses of London have, within the last thirty years, done, to my mind, so much good; have worked such important results, and offer so many curious questions for solution, both social and commercial, that I should be unjust were I to pass them over. I mean the genuine, orthodox, London coffee-houses – coffee-shops, if you will; where coffee is dispensed to the million at varying rates of one penny, three half-pence, and two-pence per cup; where eggs, bread and butter, bacon, and similar refreshments are provided at moderate rates; but where no ardent spirits or fermented liquors of any kind are either demanded by the customers or conceded by the proprietors; where – in lieu of the glasses that were wont to circle round the board, and the good company that was wont to fall underneath it in the old-fashioned coffee-houses – there is provided for the serious, well-conducted frequenters, a feast of newspapers and a flow of cheap periodicals. You and I can remember when such coffee-houses were not. If, in the old time, we wanted a cup, a dish or a bowl of coffee, we were compelled to go to the coffee-room of an hotel for it; provided always that we did not care to consume it at home. And coffee at home, even, was in those days, not by any means a faultless compound. Our aunts and mothers and sisters were blindly attached to certain prejudices and superstitions respecting the fining or clearing of coffee. Noxious compositions, such as dried fish-skins, egg-shells, what ought to have been isinglass (but was fish-bones boiled to a jelly,) together with red-hot coals, were thrown into the unresisting coffee-pot to faciliate the fining operation. Certain strange and fetish rites were also performed with the same view, by knocking the coffee-pot a cabalistic number of times on the hob, and chucking it up in mid air till the hot liquid within became a confused mass of grouts and conflicting flavors. Coffee-houses have effected a great reform in this respect, and have driven away many baneful, though time-honored superstitions.

There is scarcely a street in London – certainly it would be difficult to find three together, unprovided with a coffee-shop. The types do not vary much. Where men go simply for amusement or dissipation, they will naturally congregate in classes: the beggar will go to the beggar’s public-house, and the thief to the thieves’ theatre. But a coffee-house is neutral ground. There are in every coffee-shop whig, and tory, and radical publications, and whigs, tories and radicals assembled harmoniously to read them; for the readers are as mute as the papers.

Something like uniformity, almost amounting to monotony, prevails in the majority of London coffee-shops. The ornamental is generally sacrificed to the useful. A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals, and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an hegg” – are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs with your coffee; there are low – very low – coffee-shops, where there is sand on the floor, and an ill odor pervading the place “generally all over.” Yet, in all these coffee-houses, high or low, aristocratic or humble, clean or dirty, deal or mahogany furnished, night or day; I can sit for hours and wonder. I ponder on the evidence of Mr. Pamphilon before the coffee-committee of the House of Commons, not twenty years ago; and, reading that, and reading the excise returns, how I wonder! I wonder when I see these strong bands of honest working-men; of swart artisans; of burly coal-heavers and grimy ballast-porters; who are content to come straight from the factory, the anvil, or the wharf to the coffee-shop; who can bid the shining river of beer flow on unheeded, and content themselves with the moderate evening’s amusement to be found in cheap periodicals. And, forced as I am sometimes to admit the presence in my coffee-cup of some other ingredients besides coffee, such as chicory, burnt beans, pounded bones, calcined clover, or such trifling little strangers – I wonder still at the immense good the penny cup of coffee (as it should be,) but still the cup, coffee or not coffee, has worked in this huge London. Whatever it be, they drink it, and it does not make them drunk; and drinking, they read; and reading, they learn to think, and to wash, and to teach their little children to read, and to think, and to wash, too. I doubt if a murder were ever planned in a coffee-shop.

    Charles Dickens.

JAMES LOGAN OF PENNSYLVANIA