flour upon a plate. Long habit has made it easy to her, and in an
incredibly short time she has formed a multitude of small grains--her
hands, it must be said, looking a great deal cleaner after the
process. On the fire is a pot of water, just placed. She interrupts
her labor to throw in a piece of kid, which, with a quantity of
spices, she stirs around with her callous hand, almost to the
boiling-pitch of the water. She then addicts herself once more to
the manufacture of the flour-grains, of which she has directly made
a perfect mountain. The water now boiling, she places the granulated
paste in a second earthen pot or vase, whose bottom, pierced like a
colander with holes, fits like a cover upon that in which the meat is
boiling. The steam cooks the grains, which are afterward served upon a
platter, with the meat on top and the soup poured over. All travelers
agree that, when you do not witness the preparation, couscoussou is a
toothsome and attractive dish, fit to be set beside the maccaroni of
Rossini.

[Illustration: BOU-KTEUN.]

On the plateau outside the douar we find the cemetery, with its tombs;
for the Arab, content to sleep under tissue while he lives, must needs
sleep under mason-work after he is dead. Under the koubba, or dome,
is seen a sarcophagus covered with a crimson pall, the tomb of a dead
marabout: banners of yellow or green silk, the testimony of so many
pilgrimages to Mecca, hang over the dead. In the graveyard round about
are tombstones roughly sculptured, and the stone turbans indicating
the cranium of a Mussulman; the Arab, again, after building his
house of camel's hair, ordering his last turban to be woven by the
stone-mason!