rk, is the rude music of the snake-charmer; and the last
sight is that of a public story-teller in one of the little squares,
earnestly gesticulating before a score of eager listeners while he
recites a chapter from the "Thousand and One Nights."

The sultan of Morocco is supreme, and holds the lives and fortunes of
his subjects at his will. He is judge and executioner of the laws, which
emanate from himself. Taxation is so heavy as to amount to prohibition,
in many departments of enterprise; exportation is hampered, agriculture
so heavily loaded with taxes that it is only pursued so far as to supply
the bare necessities of life; manufacture is just where it was centuries
ago, and is performed with the same primitive tools; the printing-press
is unknown; there are no books, save the Koran; and the language is such
a mixture of tongues, and is so corrupted, as to hardly have a
distinctive existence. The people obey the local sheikhs (pronounced
_sh[=a]k_); above them are the cadis, who control provinces; and still
higher, are the pashas, who are accountable only to the sultan.

Returning to Gibraltar we take a coasting steamer along the shore of
Spain eastward to Malaga, the city of raisins and sweet wine. It is
commercially one of the most important cities of the country, and was
once the capital of an independent state. It was a large and prosperous
Phoenician metropolis centuries before the time of Christ upon earth.
The older portions of the city have all the Moorish peculiarities of
construction,--narrow streets, crooked passages, small barred windows,
and heavy doors; but the modern part of Malaga is characterized by
broad, straight thoroughfares and elegantly built houses of stone. This
is especially the case with the Alameda, which has a central walk
ornamented by flowers and shrubs, and which is bordered with handsome
almond-trees. On either side of this broad promenade is a good roadway,
flanked by houses of pleasing architectural effect, lofty and well
relieved.

There are several fine open squares in Malaga, some of which contain
statues and ornamental trees, together with well-kept flower-beds. The
discovery not long since of Roman antiquities in the environs has
created a warm interest among archaeologists. The trade of the city in
wine and dried fruits is large. Four-fifths of the forty thousand butts
of sweet wine shipped from here are exported to the United States. The
present population is about a hun