on the white horse. They explained volubly that
the lord was away, but the newcomer checked them as soon as he could,
saying that he had heard the news in the city. He had with him ladies,
one a relative of his own, another who was connected with the great lord
himself, and they must be entertained as the lord would wish, were he
not absent.

The gates, or doors, of iron were thrown wide open, and the little
procession entered a huge open court. On one side was accommodation for
many animals, as in a caravanserai, with a narrow roof sheltering thirty
or forty stalls; and here the two white meharis were made to kneel, that
the women might descend from their bassourahs. There were three, all
veiled, but the arms of one were bare and very brown. She moved stiffly,
as if cramped by sitting for a long time in one position; nevertheless,
she supported her companion, whose bassour she had shared. The two
Soudanese Negroes remained in this court with their animals, which the
servants of the Zaouia, began helping them to unload; but the master of
the expedition, with the two ladies of his party and Fafann, was now
obliged to walk. Several men of the Zaouia acted as their guides,
gesticulating with great respect, but lowering their eyelids, and
appearing not to see the women.

They passed through another court, very large, though not so immense as
the first, for no animals were kept there. Instead of stalls for camels
and horses, there were roughly built rooms for pilgrims of the poorer
class, with little, roofless, open-sided kitchens, where they could cook
their own food. Beyond was the third court, with lodging for more
important persons, and then the travellers were led through a labyrinth
of corridors, some roofed with palm branches, others open to the air,
and still more covered in with the toub blocks of which the walls were
built. Along the sides were crumbling benches of stucco, on which old
men lay rolled up in their burnouses; or here and there a door of
rotting palm wood hung half open, giving a glimpse into a small, dim
court, duskily red with the fire of cooking in an open-air kitchen. From
behind these doors came faint sounds of chanting, and spicy smells of
burning wood and boiling peppers. It was like passing through a
subterranean village; and little dark children, squatting in doorways,
or flattening their bodies against palm trunks which supported palm
roofs, or flitting ahead of the strangers, in the thick,