as though in a dream--a dream undisturbed, for the buyers have
almost ceased to regard her. Finally she is sold for forty-three dollars
to a very old and infirm man.

"No slaves, no slaves," says the Atlas Moor impatiently: "and in the town
they are slow to raise them." I want an explanation of this strange
complaint.

"What do you mean when you say they are slow to raise them," I ask.

"In Marrakesh now," he explains, "dealers buy the healthiest slaves they
can find, and raise as many children by them as is possible. Then, so soon
as the children are old enough to sell, they are sold, and when the
mothers grow old and have no more children, they too are sold, but they do
not fetch much then."

This statement takes all words from me, but my informant sees nothing
startling in the case, and continues gravely: "From six years old they are
sold to be companions, and from twelve they go to the hareems. Prices are
good--too high indeed; fifty-four dollars I must have paid this afternoon
to purchase one, and when Mulai Mohammed reigned the price would have
been twenty, or less, and for that one would have bought fat slaves. Where
there is one caravan now, there were ten of old times."

Only three slaves now, and they must go back to their masters to be sent
to the market on another day, for the sun is below the horizon, the market
almost empty, and the guards will be gathering at the city gates. Two
dilals make a last despairing promenade, while their companions are busy
recording prices and other details in connection with the afternoon's
business. The purchased slaves, the auctioneer's gaudy clothing changed
for their own, are being taken to the houses of their masters. We who live
within the city walls must hasten now, for the time of gate-closing is
upon us, and one may not stay outside.

It has been a great day. Many rich men have attended personally, or by
their agents, to compete for the best favoured women of the household of
the fallen kaid, and prices in one or two special cases ran beyond forty
pounds (English money), so brisk was the bidding.

Outside the market-place a country Moor of the middle class is in charge
of four young boy slaves, and is telling a friend what he paid for them. I
learn that their price averaged eleven pounds apiece in English
currency--two hundred and eighty dollars altogether in Moorish money, that
they were all bred in Marrakesh by a dealer who keeps a large
establishment of sla