order to induce them to reveal the spot where
their money was hidden, or the friends' names with whom they traded.

We looked in through a small iron grating in the door about two feet
square, revealing a space open to the skies, with roofed recesses in the
walls round the four sides, where the prisoners had huddled themselves in
their rags. At night they are chained by the leg. An Oriental does not
require "a bed," but he is provided with no substitute in prison, still
less with food and drink, for which he is dependent on friends or
relations willing to supply him. Of late years, in certain prisons, a
small loaf of bread per day is given to each man. He has the great
advantage of being able to talk all day to his fellow-prisoners; but in
the case of a refined man such close intercourse has its drawbacks, more
especially when a raving lunatic happens to be chained by an iron collar
round his neck to one of the pillars. Madmen and all alike, without
respect of persons, veritably rot to death, cheek by jowl, in a Moorish
prison. Disease, starvation, and injuries tend to shorten their
captivity. Whoever has smelt the smell within those walls will endorse
the adjective "kindly" Death, than which there surely can be no more
welcome visitor.

A few of the sound prisoners, sitting on the ground, were weaving
baskets, some of which we bought through the keeper of the prison; then
turned away, struck by the stoicism among the prisoners themselves in a
situation of such uncertainty. Was it to end in death or release? Who
knows? They merely shrug their shoulders, and ejaculate, "Ift shallah"
(God will show).

Passing the soldiers guarding the outside of the prison, and out under a
second gateway of the Kasbah, we stumbled down what is called one of the
Sultan's "highways," something very rocky and not far off the
perpendicular. R. chose her own feet, much to Hadj Riffi's annoyance.
Though the ways are such that no donkey can be ridden without stumbling
among cobble-stones and pitfalls, and thereby running a risk of pitching
the rider off the insecure pack into a refuse-heap, it was impossible for
a European, in his eyes, to walk and to maintain his dignity at the same
time.

[Illustration: TWO SHEIKHS.

[_To face p. 18._]

That no Moor runs when he can walk, or walks when he can ride, or stands
when he can sit, or sits when he can lie down, is a saying fulfilled to
the letter. And what poor man, however heavily he loads hi