DOI issue:
No. 259 (October 1914)
DOI article:Rix Nicholas, Hilda: Sketching in Morocco: a letter from Miss Hilda Rix
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21211#0044
Sketching in Morocco
Naturally the idle crowds on the market-place became agitated—fearing harm to his camel through
surround me, but so engrossing is the task of my " evil eye." So he planted himself in front of
catching the ever-moving people that one becomes the beast, and a friend, looking equally fierce,
unconscious of the crowds behind, for they never joined him; the two of them holding out their
get between one and one's subject. Of course wide jelabas succeeded in blocking out my entire
many subterfuges have to be employed to keep the view.
victim unsuspecting, but unhappily some one in my Well, I looked pathetic for an instant, saying
audience invariably recognises my prey and calls " La, la ! " (No, no !). But finding them adamant,
to Mohammed or Absolam that he is being I went away amid much heated comment and
captured on paper. Sometimes the said Absolam laughter. Instead of going quite away, however, I
only looks sheepish, wriggling, alas! out of position, made a little detour and returned to that corner of
or sometimes completely disappearing. If one the Soko, but on the other side of the camel, and
feels that there is a resentful spirit growing one stood on a two-foot-high wall from where I got a
gracefully melts away. splendid view of my game. I proceeded to draw
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
"a negro woman, morocco. from a drawing in coloured chalks
naughty ways, at once e. hilda rix
39
Naturally the idle crowds on the market-place became agitated—fearing harm to his camel through
surround me, but so engrossing is the task of my " evil eye." So he planted himself in front of
catching the ever-moving people that one becomes the beast, and a friend, looking equally fierce,
unconscious of the crowds behind, for they never joined him; the two of them holding out their
get between one and one's subject. Of course wide jelabas succeeded in blocking out my entire
many subterfuges have to be employed to keep the view.
victim unsuspecting, but unhappily some one in my Well, I looked pathetic for an instant, saying
audience invariably recognises my prey and calls " La, la ! " (No, no !). But finding them adamant,
to Mohammed or Absolam that he is being I went away amid much heated comment and
captured on paper. Sometimes the said Absolam laughter. Instead of going quite away, however, I
only looks sheepish, wriggling, alas! out of position, made a little detour and returned to that corner of
or sometimes completely disappearing. If one the Soko, but on the other side of the camel, and
feels that there is a resentful spirit growing one stood on a two-foot-high wall from where I got a
gracefully melts away. splendid view of my game. I proceeded to draw
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
"a negro woman, morocco. from a drawing in coloured chalks
naughty ways, at once e. hilda rix
39