Thursday was chosen as auspicious for the wedding, but the ceremonies
commenced on the Sunday before. The first item on an extensive
programme was the visit of the bride with her immediate female
relatives and friends to the steam bath at the kasbah, a rarity in
country villages, in this case used only by special favour. At the
close of an afternoon of fun and frolic in the bath-house, Zoharah,
the bride, was escorted to her home closely muffled, to keep her bed
till the following day.

Next morning it was the duty of Mokhtar, the bridegroom, to send his
betrothed a bullock, with oil, butter and onions; pepper, salt and
spices; charcoal and wood; figs, raisins, dates and almonds; candles
and henna, wherewith to prepare the marriage feast. He had already,
according to the custom of the country, presented the members of her
family with slippers and ornaments. As soon as the bullock arrived it
was killed amid great rejoicings and plenty of "tom-tom," especially
as in the villages a sheep is usually considered sufficient provision.
On this day Mokhtar's male friends enjoyed a feast in the afternoon,
while in the evening the bride had to undergo the process of
re-staining with henna to the accompaniment of music. The usual effect
of this was somewhat counteracted, however, by the wails of those who
had lost relatives during the year. On each successive night, when the
drumming began, the same sad scene was repeated--a strange alloy in
all the merriment of the wedding.

On the Tuesday Zoharah received her maiden friends, children attending
the reception in the afternoon, till the none too roomy hut was
crowded to suffocation, and the bride exhausted, although custom
prescribed that she should lie all day on the bed, closely wrapped
up, and seen by none of her guests, from whom she was separated by a
curtain. Every visitor had brought with her some little gift, such
as handkerchiefs, candles, sugar, tea, spices and dried fruits, the
inspection of which, when all were gone, was her only diversion that
day. Throughout that afternoon and the next the neighbouring villages
rivalled one another in peaceful sport and ear-splitting ululation, as
though, within the memory of man, no other state of things had ever
existed between them.

Meanwhile Mokhtar had a more enlivening time with his bachelor
friends, who, after feasting with him in the evening, escorted him,
wrapped in a haik or shawl, to the house of his betrothed, outs