ng for a customer. And if he keeps his groceries
as free from flies and ants as he does his spotless white turban we will
buy our day's supplies here. The shops in Arabia are not very large and
they have no place for customers except outside. Sometimes there is a sort
of raised seat or bench on which the purchaser sits when he bargains for
something; but generally you have to stand up outside while the crowds
push and the traffic goes on. One curious custom is that all the shops of
one kind cluster close together in one street or section of the town. You
will see for example in one street a long row of shops where they sell
drugs and perfumery; in another place there are only hardware merchants;
again a whole street of nothing but grocers. I think the reason is that
Arabs love to bargain and to beat down prices and so it is easier to have
all the merchants of one kind close together. At any rate this arrangement
makes it quite convenient for the purchaser. Indeed it is becoming
somewhat customary to group the shops in this way in some of your Western
cities. Occidental civilisation can learn some things from the Orient!

[Illustration: ARAB GROCER.]

Our shopkeeper has a mixed lot of groceries in his shop; many things which
you would find at your grocers' he has never heard of. Everything is
topsy-turvy. Just fancy how strange to hang up the sugar in a row of cones
on strings like sausages! Do you see them on the ceiling of the shop in
our picture? That is the way white sugar comes wrapped from France and is
sold in Arabia. A sugar _barrel_ would soon be full of ants in this
country; but when it hangs up on a string the ants have a hard time
getting it away. Maybe there is a suggestion here for your homes if you
are troubled with ants.

In those big Arab baskets the grocer keeps his carrots and other
vegetables; carrots are white in Arabia and there are curious vegetables
of which you have never heard.

Do you see the bottles and tin boxes on his shelves? Those are for spices;
pepper, cinnamon, nutmegs, curry-powder and such things of which Arab
housewives are very fond.

The big bowl on the left probably has olives in it or other kind of
pickled vegetables. On the right you can see the big pair of old fashioned
scales on which he weighs his wares. I hope he is an honest man, although
I do not think he looks very honest, do you? The scale hangs true I have
no doubt; but it is in the weights that deception lurks. In