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TANGIERS 107
side of the Straits, the number of wives a man keeps
is in direct proportion to his money. A Pasha has
only eight wives; he cannot afford to support more;
and if there are so many men who have to get along
with only one wife and some with none at all, Hadji
says this is due entirely to the hard times. Hadji him-
self is not married and has not the slightest intention
to marry until he can keep two wives. In fact, he
would be in a position to do this now if there were
more English women visiting the town, for the Eng-
lish women pay their guides very well. But since the
bridge-head was finished down by the beach, enabling
boats to moor instead of anchoring out in the bay,
which obliged passengers to ride ashore on the backs
of naked negroes except at high tide, the English
women do not cross the Straits as much as they used to.
For this reason, Hadji does not want to get married;
it would be too boring to have to get along with one
wife only; only “‘these niggers” could do such a thing.
Again and again he reverts to the subject of Pasha’s
harem, telling me all sorts of improbable things con-
cerning the edifice and its inmates. But he has no hair-
raising tales of romantic incidents, of faithless women
of the harem stuck into bags and sunk in the Straits
by night where the current is strongest. Pasha’s
women are proud of their station, which they have
chosen of their own free will, says Hadji, and do not
wish to go in for silly adventures. However, there are
guards with long spears and plenty of eunuchs around
the harem so that things hardly give the appearance
of a Pasha as sure of his women as Hadji says he is.
Men are not permitted to enter. But one day as I
was going by, I caught a glimpse of a thick-skirted
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