try women squatted
on the ground, the former in baskets or heaps on the stones, the
latter in uninviting red jars, with a round of prickly-pear leaf for a
stopper, and a bit of palmetto rope for a handle.

By this time we are in the midst of a perfect Babel--a human
maelstrom. In a European crowd one is but crushed by human beings;
here all sorts of heavily laden quadrupeds, with packs often four feet
across, come jostling past, sometimes with the most unsavoury loads.
We have just time to observe that more country women are selling
walnuts, vegetables, and fruits, on our left, at the door of what used
to be the tobacco and hemp fandak, and that native sweets, German
knick-knacks and Spanish fruit are being sold on our right, as amid
the din of forges on either side we find ourselves in the midst of the
crush to get through the narrow gate.

Here an exciting scene ensues. Continuous streams of people and beasts
of burden are pushing both ways; a drove of donkeys laden with rough
bundles of cork-wood for the ovens approaches, the projecting ends
prodding the passers-by; another drove laden with stones tries to pass
them, while half a dozen mules and horses vainly endeavour to pass
out. A European horseman trots up and makes the people fly, but not so
the beasts, till he gets wedged in the midst, and must bide his time
after all. Meanwhile one is almost deafened by the noise of
shouting, most of it good-humoured. "Zeed! Arrah!" vociferates
the donkey-driver. "Balak!" shouts the horseman. "Balak! Guarda!"
(pronounced warda) in a louder key comes from a man who is trying to
pilot a Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary through the
gate, with Her Excellency on his arm.

At last we seize a favourable opportunity and are through. Now we can
breathe. In front of us, underneath an arch said to have been built
to shelter the English guard two hundred years ago (which is very
unlikely, since the English destroyed the fortifications of this
gate), we see the native shoeing-smiths hacking at the hoofs of
horses, mules, and donkeys, in a manner most extraordinary to us, and
nailing on triangular plates with holes in the centre--though most
keep a stock of English imported shoes and nails for the fastidious
Nazarenes. Spanish and Jewish butchers are driving a roaring trade at
movable stalls made of old boxes, and the din is here worse than ever.

Now we turn aside into the vegetable market, as it is called, though
as w