ult to deal with and least ready
for the hearing of the Gospel. One of them, during a medical visit, drew
her prayer mat to a distance lest I defile it and closed her ears with
her fingers to shut out my words. Undoubtedly the _very best_, and often
_only_, way of reaching them is through the dispensary.

Their lives centre largely round the three annual feasts, in preparation
for and enjoyment of them. Every birth, circumcision, wedding, death,
and even serious illness, is an opportunity, for those allowed
sufficient freedom, to receive and pay visits, feast, enjoy the
accompanying minstrels, appear in their most gorgeous dress and
criticise that of others. Meanwhile they engage in empty and profitless
conversation, which too often passes into the injurious both for body
and soul, of young and old, hostess and guests. Much attention is paid
to fashion, and Moorish etiquette is not to be lightly treated or easily
fulfilled.

Some of the women figure in the weird orgies of religious sects of a
private and public character. Their wild, dishevelled, and torn hair is
prominent in the Satanic dance of the Aisowia Derwishes, and they vie
with the men in its frenzied freaks, falling finally exhausted to the
ground, unable to rise. But this class fortunately is not numerous. I
was visiting in one of these houses last year in Fez. The occupants were
strangers and had come pleading me to relieve one in very acute pain.
The atmosphere of the room hung heavily over me, I knew not why. Taking
my colloquial Gospel, I spoke of Christ and asked to read. A blank
refusal was the answer. Then the storm broke and during my second visit
I had to rise and leave, asserting my union with Christ and the
impossibility of having me or my drugs without the message of my Master
and Saviour. They have since been, when the violent pain returned,
pleading for relief, but not again inviting to their house. Such uncanny
sense of the immediate presence of the evil one, I have never
experienced, as when under their roof, nor would wish to again. It was
an intense relief to breathe freely in the open air afterwards. Yet two
of our recent converts, and one of them among the most promising, have
belonged to these followers of Satan! Their wild hair is now neatly
braided and they are clothed and in their right minds, sitting with
their converted sisters to learn more of Jesus and lifting up voices in
prayer to Him.

Female slaves, from the far Soudan, are