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is an atmosphere of frank gaiety quite impossible to realize without seeing it. Some of them have their babies with them, others live with their mothers. The majority of the inmates are of the tribe of the Ouled Naïl, but there are, of course, many girls from the local tribes too, the great difference being that those who come from the Ouled Naïl are not in any way lowering their prestige by living this life. They have come with the full consent of their parents, and one day they may leave and honorably marry. It depends a great deal on the dowry. In the old days the girls always tried to collect gold pieces, which they strung into necklaces, and one saw a woman all dressed up and her neck weighed down with hundred-franc and twenty-franc pieces. Now that gold is no longer current in France the women convert all the notes they have into bits of gold, which they have beaten into bracelets and earrings and tiaras. Some of them manage to buy hoarded collections of gold pieces to make into necklaces, while others have inherited them from their mothers.

However, the main point is to have the dowry in gold actually on the person, so that there is no danger of its depreciating in value, and when the girls leave the quarter to go to some private party in order to dance, they are accompanied by a constable and by a soldier with a rifle. The result of this system of buying gold has, of course, made the girls very rich. Paper currency has depreciated, so that a hundred-franc piece sells for a high price, and the money, though not fructifying in actual interest, is a capital ever increasing in value.

Of course these jewels are not common only to the girls of the Quarter; all Arab women strive to have as much jewelry as possible, but naturally they have other expenses to consider, whereas a girl of the