from your seat on the mattress facing the door till the women whom you
hear emerging from their retreats have been admonished to withdraw
again. The long, narrow apartment, some eight feet by twenty, in
which you find yourself has a double bed at each end, for it is
sleeping-room and sitting-room combined, as in Barbary no distinction
is known between the two. However long you may remain, you see no
female face but that of the cheery slave-girl, who kisses your hand so
demurely as she enters with refreshments.

Thus the husband receives his friends--perforce all males unless he be
"on the spree,"--in apartments from which all women-folk are banished.
Likewise the ladies of the establishment hold their festive gatherings
apart. Most Moors, however, are too strict to allow much visiting
among their women, especially if they be wealthy and have a good
complexion, when they are very closely confined, except when allowed
to visit the bath at certain hours set apart for the fair sex, or on
Fridays to lay myrtle branches on the tombs of saints and departed
relatives. Most of the ladies' calls are roof-to-roof visitations, and
very nimble they are in getting over the low partition walls, even
dragging a ladder up and down with them if there are high ones to
be crossed. The reason is that the roofs, or rather terraces, are
especially reserved for women-folk, and men are not even allowed to go
up except to do repairs, when the neighbouring houses are duly warned;
it is illegal to have a window overlooking another's roof. David's
temptation doubtless arose from his exercise of a Royal exemption from
this all-prevailing custom.

But for their exceedingly substantial build, the Moorish women in the
streets might pass for ghosts, for with the exception of their red
Morocco slippers, their costume is white--wool-white. A long and heavy