f a guitar, accompanied by a
dull monotonous strain, in celebration of warlike exploits or love
adventures; the Arabs give to it their pleased attention. In the
bazaars, in the shops, wherever a pacific life predominates, smokers are
met with. Those wearing a green turban spring from the stock of
Mohammed, or else have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and learned the
Koran by heart, which raises them to the rank of holy men.

"The criers' class of Jerusalem consists of all who sell in the streets,
of the camel and donkey drivers, and of the country-women who daily
bring fuel, herbs, vegetables, and eggs, into the city. They generally
station themselves and their wares on the Place de Jaffa, and scream in
a frightful manner; one would think they were quarrelling, when, in
reality, they are only gossiping. These women allow their dirty mantles
or veils to fall from the head down upon the back, and do not cover the
face. They are always decked and sometimes _plated_ with silver
ornaments. Silver coins, strung together, are carried in bands across
the forehead, and hang down the cheeks. Their fingers are covered with
rings and their wrists with bracelets. Not unfrequently you will see
very young girls with the face framed in silver money, to correspond
with their head-gear--a small cap or hood embroidered with Turkish
piastres, set as close together as the scales of a fish.

"I have heard it said that this cap is a maiden's dower. The
country-women are often remarkable for a kind of savage beauty, but
generally they are ugly, with an expression of rudeness and ill-nature.
They are a collection of sorceresses, whom I feared more than the men of
the same class, though the latter assuredly did not inspire me with much
confidence.

"The Arab women of high rank, enveloped in long white mantles, and with
their faces hidden by a close veil of black, yellow, or blue gauze, form
my third division. They walk, or rather totter, through the streets in
numerous groups or bands, shod with yellow slippers or _bottines_, to
enjoy a promenade outside the Jaffa Gate. You never hear them utter a
word in the streets, nor do they pause for a moment. If that black or
yellow object approach you, covered with her white veil, and turn in
your direction, it is with an expressive, a piercing, questioning
glance; but you cannot discover nor even divine the face concealed by
that coloured gauze. These poor dumb phantoms, who are all the more to
be