and brilliantly fine teeth. We could not but look critically at the Moor
who was engaged for the moment with our guide, for he was a good
representative of that proud race which in its glory built palaces like
the Alhambra, and such mosques as that at Cordova.

Our leisure moments here were passed in strolling through the queer
native bazars; examining the mosques, from the towers of which at sunset
we heard the Muezzin call to prayer; and in visiting the slave market,
just outside of the city walls, where business is prosecuted though not
so extensively as heretofore. These slaves are mostly prisoners of war,
sold by native chieftains in Guinea to Morocco merchants, who drive
them, chained together in long strings, from market to market until
disposed of for the harems or as laborers. The sales take place always
on the Sabbath, regarded as a sort of holiday. The average price of the
women and girls is from fifty to sixty dollars, according to age and
good looks. The men vary much in price, frequently selling at much lower
figures, according to the demand for labor. About the large open space
near the slave mart were congregated groups of camels and their Bedouin
owners, who had just arrived from the interior, bringing native goods,
with dried fruits, to market, forming an assembly such as can only be
found on the borders of the desert, and which, indeed, would be utterly
out of place except beneath the glow and shimmer of an African sun.

There were men, women, children, and animals, each little group a
family, picturesque in their squalor and their coarseness. Their brown,
flat tents were of the same shape and material as those we had seen
between Suez and Ismailia. Naked children and half-clad mothers peeped
at us out of their canvas homes, or raised their heads above the awkward
saddles and trappings of the kneeling camels, behind which they reposed.
The docile, uncouth, buff-colored beasts were soberly chewing their
cuds, and resting after their long and weary journey. It was a striking
scene, which an artist would have traveled far to sketch, lying under a
warm, hazy, atmospheric covering, so peculiar to Egypt and Africa, with
the rough, red stone walls of the city for a background, and the arched
Moorish gateway at the side. Here and there were to be seen dapple-gray
horses of unmistakable Arab breed, animals which any rich European would
have been proud to own. In one instance, seeing a fine full-bred mare
and h