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90 DAYS IN THE SUN
insanity. Along the sidewalks and on the balcony
stand cool-blooded Britons, of the kind not to be im-
pressed either by the cruelty of a bull-fight or the
beauty of the Alhambra, yet they drink in with an ex-
pression of delirious enjoyment this flood of rolling
drums, calls of command and mechanically moving
legs.
Upwards of thirty thousand people live on this rock.
Six thousand of them are English soldiers and officers,
to which we must add the English officials and many
private English families. But the great mass of the
population—all of the lower class and most of the
middle—is as southern as the climate. Indian, Jewish,
Turkish and Spanish shops stand side by side as soon
as one walks away from the main street, with an occa-
sional saloon for the English sailors, or a German or
Scandinavian shipping office. On the market-place you
will find togas, Jewish kaftans and the white burnous
of the Arab; the English language is murdered by
offenders with every accent; cursing, swearing and
cheating is carried on in Babel’s tongues. Coolies,
negroes, Spanish and Italian day-laborers do the rough
jobs in and around the ports. Each race prays on its
own holidays; the Hindoos close their shops on Fri-
day; the Jews on Saturday. There are oriental flat
roofs, and Andalusian balconies and pillared Moorish
courts with fountains. The backs of donkeys carry all
the luscious tropical fruits of the south through the
streets.
But the careless oriental calm, the indifference, the
complacent laissez faire, the unconventional, the inac-
tive, the care-free animal-like existence which is so
much the temperamental attraction of southern na-
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