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she must at once make one for herself. Here again she has three further alternatives: to enter the local zaouia, where she practically becomes the slave of the marabout and lives the rest of her life weaving and working in this kind of convent; or, if she prefers it, she can become a servant; or, as a last resource, enter the ranks of the dancing-girls in the reserved quarter. In fact, if she has no occupation and no house of her own, the French authorities force her to take up her residence in that special part of the town. But, except in these particular cases, the Arab woman is not the bond-slave of the man, and I have no doubt that the majority are much happier than many European wives. It is, of course, very difficult to get any definite information about all this, as it is against the laws of etiquette to mention Arab women to their men. The above facts have been gathered by little bits of talk here and there with intimate friends, who have now and then voluntarily unburdened their hearts, by talks to some of the rare few of the older generation who have traveled a great deal and who don't mind airing their views, and by actual contact with respectable married women. Of this the less said the better, as such meetings were strictly against all the laws of propriety, and were contrived by friendly intrigues.

Secrecy about the womenfolk is so great that the stranger is not even allowed to hear the sound of their voices, and I have stayed with an Arab chief for a week, where we were eighteen to dinner every night, and where there must have been twenty women and as many children in the same house, and I never heard a sound which suggested female presence. Even in the Sahara, where the women are only divided from the men by a rug hung across the center of the tent, I have passed the night, and only realized that women