DOI Artikel:
Rix, E. Hilda: Sketching in Morocco: a letter from Miss Hilda Rix
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43457#0060
Sketching in Morocco
Naturally the idle crowds on the market-place
surround me, but so engrossing is the task of
catching the ever-moving people that one becomes
unconscious of the crowds behind, for they never
get between one and one’s subject. Of course
many subterfuges have to be employed to keep the
victim unsuspecting, but unhappily some one in my
audience invariably recognises my prey and calls
to Mohammed or Absolam that he is being
captured on paper. Sometimes the said Absolam
only looks sheepish, wriggling, alas! out of position,
or sometimes completely disappearing. If one
feels that there is a resentful spirit growing one
gracefully melts away.
Often in the heat of work
I am not conscious of the
ring of people until with a
snap a pencil breaks, and I
hear a chorus of gentle
groans of sympathy—and
when I dropped a pencil
the other day, an Arab
picking it up and seeing
the point was broken
whipped out his large knife
and sharpened it and pre¬
sented it to me with a
beaming smile. Would
that all were as complacent!
The other day, coming up
from the Soko, I saw two
camels stalking super¬
ciliously down the hill into
the market with huge cases
and baskets of dates and
oranges. I was delighted
to see them because since
the war they have not been
able to enter Tangiers as
the Spaniards hold the
roads. So with my bag ot
ammunition and my big
drawing board I followed
them. They descended
the hill to the foot of the
Soko where their master
made them kneel to be
unloaded. I began my
work, and immediately a
merry crowd formed around
me; but the owner of the
camel, a man from the
interior, unused to my
naughty ways, at once
became agitated—fearing harm to his camel through
my “ evil eye.” So he planted himself in front of
the beast, and a friend, looking equally fierce,
joined him; the two of them holding out their
wide jelabas succeeded in blocking out my entire
view.
Well, I looked pathetic for an instant, saying
“ La, la 1 ” (No, no 1). But finding them adamant,
I went away amid much heated comment and
laughter. Instead of going quite away, however, I
made a little detour and returned to that corner of
the Soko, but1 on the other side of the camel, and
stood on a two-foot-high wall from where I got a
splendid view of my game. I proceeded to draw
“a negro woman, morocco.” from a drawing in coloured chalks by
E. HILDA RIX
39
Naturally the idle crowds on the market-place
surround me, but so engrossing is the task of
catching the ever-moving people that one becomes
unconscious of the crowds behind, for they never
get between one and one’s subject. Of course
many subterfuges have to be employed to keep the
victim unsuspecting, but unhappily some one in my
audience invariably recognises my prey and calls
to Mohammed or Absolam that he is being
captured on paper. Sometimes the said Absolam
only looks sheepish, wriggling, alas! out of position,
or sometimes completely disappearing. If one
feels that there is a resentful spirit growing one
gracefully melts away.
Often in the heat of work
I am not conscious of the
ring of people until with a
snap a pencil breaks, and I
hear a chorus of gentle
groans of sympathy—and
when I dropped a pencil
the other day, an Arab
picking it up and seeing
the point was broken
whipped out his large knife
and sharpened it and pre¬
sented it to me with a
beaming smile. Would
that all were as complacent!
The other day, coming up
from the Soko, I saw two
camels stalking super¬
ciliously down the hill into
the market with huge cases
and baskets of dates and
oranges. I was delighted
to see them because since
the war they have not been
able to enter Tangiers as
the Spaniards hold the
roads. So with my bag ot
ammunition and my big
drawing board I followed
them. They descended
the hill to the foot of the
Soko where their master
made them kneel to be
unloaded. I began my
work, and immediately a
merry crowd formed around
me; but the owner of the
camel, a man from the
interior, unused to my
naughty ways, at once
became agitated—fearing harm to his camel through
my “ evil eye.” So he planted himself in front of
the beast, and a friend, looking equally fierce,
joined him; the two of them holding out their
wide jelabas succeeded in blocking out my entire
view.
Well, I looked pathetic for an instant, saying
“ La, la 1 ” (No, no 1). But finding them adamant,
I went away amid much heated comment and
laughter. Instead of going quite away, however, I
made a little detour and returned to that corner of
the Soko, but1 on the other side of the camel, and
stood on a two-foot-high wall from where I got a
splendid view of my game. I proceeded to draw
“a negro woman, morocco.” from a drawing in coloured chalks by
E. HILDA RIX
39