t or might not be gems; and articles of clothing, including
sandals of all kinds, from the perfectly plain piece of board, secured
by a single strap, to articles of the most elegant design and costly
workmanship.

The little party traversed this street for about a quarter of a mile,
attracting little or no notice from the passers-by as they went, and
then turned abruptly out of it into a wide road leading gradually
uphill. The houses which bordered this road were all private
residences, detached from each other, and each embosomed in its own
spacious garden, aflame with flowers of the most brilliant hues and
exquisite perfume, several of the species being quite unknown to the
Englishmen. The people who were encountered in this road, or were seen
passing in or out of the houses, or moving about in the gardens,
appeared to be of decidedly higher caste than any that the travellers
had thus far seen. Their skins were not so swarthy, their features were
more refined, many of the women being exceedingly beautiful, although
the good looks of the men were to a considerable extent marred by an
expression which may best be described as latent, cold-blooded ferocity.
All these people wore garments of exceedingly fine material, mostly
white, richly trimmed with elaborate embroidery in colours or gold, the
women's dress being a long, sleeveless garment reaching from the throat
to the feet and confined at the waist by an ornamental belt, handsome
sandals, much jewellery, and the head bare, the heavy masses of dark
hair being wound upon the head very becomingly, and intertwined with
ribbon or strings of coloured beads. The costumes of the men were of
two kinds: the elders wore for the most part a long, flowing _burnous_
kind of garment with enormous loose sleeves reaching to the wrists,
while the younger men wore a kind of tunic confined at the waist by a
belt and reaching just below the knee. All wore either sandals or
buskins, and all were bareheaded, the hair of the men being exceedingly
thick, allowed to grow long enough to reach the shoulder, and mostly
dressed in thick clusters of tight, straight curls. The general type of
countenance, as Grosvenor again took occasion to remark to Dick, was
distinctly Hebraic.

The road which the party now followed twisted and turned hither and
thither, apparently with the object of securing a uniform gradient, but
it led continuously upward, until at length it conducted them to an
enorm