blanket of coarse homespun effectually conceals all features but
the eyes, which are touched up with antimony on the lids, and are
sufficiently expressive. Sometimes a wide-brimmed straw hat is
jauntily clapped on; but here ends the plate of Moorish out-door
fashions. In-doors all is colour, light and glitter.

In matters of colour and flowing robes the men are not far behind, and
they make up abroad for what they lack at home. No garment is more
artistic, and no drapery more graceful, than that in which the wealthy
Moor takes his daily airing, either on foot or on mule back. Beneath
a gauze-like woollen toga--relic of ancient art--glimpses of luscious
hue are caught--crimson and purple; deep greens and "afternoon sun
colour" (the native name for a rich orange); salmons, and pale, clear
blues. A dark-blue cloak, when it is cold, negligently but gracefully
thrown across the shoulders, or a blue-green prayer-carpet folded
beneath the arm, helps to set off the whole.

_Chez lui_ our friend of the flowing garments is a king, with slaves
to wait upon him, wives to obey him, and servants to fear his wrath.
But his everyday reception-room is the lobby of his stables, where he
sits behind the door in rather shabby garments attending to business
matters, unless he is a merchant or shopkeeper, when his store serves
as office instead.

If all that the Teuton considers essential to home-life is really a
_sine quâ non_, then Orientals have no home-life. That is our way
of looking upon it, judging in the most natural way, by our own
standards. The Eastern, from his point of view, forms an equally poor
idea of the customs which familiarity has rendered most dear to us.
It is as difficult for us to set aside prejudice and to consider his