"Most of the nations seem to be represented here."
"Arabs, Moors, Jews, French, Spaniards, Germans, Italians, Maltese, and Turks," added the guide. "That street is Bab-el Ouad, and a little farther is Bab-azoun, two of the best streets in the city; and they are very fine."
"They are built like the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, with colonnades on each side; but they are very narrow, like the streets of most Spanish and Oriental cities. Bab means street, I take it," said the captain, as the party stopped to look down the first of the two streets. "When the sun is hot that would be a very comfortable place to walk."
After the party had spent an hour in the Place Royale, with a short walk in the Bab-el Ouad, the guide conducted them up a narrow and irregular street to the upper town, where the scene became vastly more interesting because it was novel and strange.
"I should think we were back in Mogadore," said Mrs. Belgrave, the only Oriental city she or any of the other passengers had ever seen, and every person and object commanded their attention.
The people of this section were nearly all Mohammedans, and the few women they saw were veiled. Most of them were fat and dumpy, for obesity is a chief attraction in an Oriental belle. The Nubians were jet black, but they were as closely veiled as those who were whiter. Many mosques were in sight all the time, and the commander spoke to the guide about them.
"There are one hundred mosques and marabouts in the city," said he.
"What are marabouts?" asked the captain, and all the others were gathered around him to hear what was said; and the natives gazed at them as much in wonder as the tourists at the strange sight before them.
"A marabout is a tomb, or the sanctuary of a saint, and some of them are very elegant edifices."
"What is this in front of us?"