era, formed but unimportant parts in an ever-moving picture in
which were intermingled the costumes, colors, and facial characteristics
of dervishes, priests, and soldiers, of Arabs, Nubians, Turks, and
Americans.

[Illustration: IN THE COURT OF THE ALABASTER MOSQUE IS A FOUNTAIN.]

The Muski and the crooked little passage-ways that intersected it were
lined with small shops where many of the dealers sat cross-legged on
platforms within arm's reach of their stock of goods. The stores for the
sale of each kind of goods had a special quarter of their own. At one
place we saw the shops of the coppersmiths with stocks of bright
kettles, pitchers, basins, trays, and pans; at another, the stores of
the shoemakers, where hundreds of bright red slippers dangled on lines
overhead. In one crooked alley, but four feet in width, we watched the
goldsmiths, squatted in narrow quarters, busily at work with brazier and
blowpipes and curious little tools, hammering, twisting, and welding
chains of gold, and making ornaments of silver filagree.

We bought souvenirs at the stalls of the fez dealers, where but one
style of headgear was sold, always red in color, and with prices varying
according to the quality of the cloth and lining. We stopped at the
warerooms of the brass-smiths, which were larger in size than the
ordinary shops, and found these filled with an array of hammered trays,
censers, bowls, tankards, curiously wrought lamps, and ornamented
candlesticks, that attracted many buyers. We looked into the little
factories of the saddlers, which were gay with red and yellow trappings
for donkeys and horses, and where the saddlers were stitching with
bright colored-threads.

The light open-front workshops of the makers of hempen camel harness
were hung with the twisted rope and tassel adornments of variegated
colors with which the Bedouin delights to array his ship of the desert.
The stores of the grocers were adorned with long decorated candles
suspended by the wicks. We saw hundreds of tiny bazaars for the sale of
perfumes, placed side by side in a narrow lane where the air was scented
with musk and attar of roses; and we walked through narrow streets
where, each kind in its own section, earthen water jars, lanterns,
books, ornamented leather work, gems, and precious stones were displayed
for sale.

The guide insisted that we should spend a little time in the carpet
stores in a side street. We yielded to his entreaties, and wer