The first thing one notices about the hot springs of Hammam Mousketine which I mentioned above, is clouds of steam coming up out of the bushes at different points. Here you will find water bubbling up out of the ground and through a small mound of hard white or yellow crust.
The water is boiling hot, and the crust is formed from salts and chemicals contained in the water drying on the surface.
There are about a dozen of these springs and a large number of cones or mounds which have been springs, and which have choked themselves up or run dry.
Half a dozen of these cones, of about ten feet high, stand together in a group, and the Arabs have a curious story about them, which I will tell you in the next paragraph. Also close by is a great waterfall about a hundred yards wide by fifty feet high, but all turned to stone by the same process.
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THE ARAB MARRIAGE.
A rich Arab named Ali Cassam had a beautiful sister named Ourida.
Ali thought her the best woman in the world, and although she was his sister he determined to marry her.
Such a marriage is considered just as unholy by the Mohammedans as it is with us, and so everybody was against it. But Ali was great and powerful, and he thought that by making a magnificent show of it he would get over the feelings of those who said it was wrong.
[Illustration: The wedding party were all there in their places, but all were turned into stone.]