Another pleasant little mosque, that of Sidi-el-Haloui, lies outside the walls in a squalid native suburb, which is nevertheless a better frame for it than the banal French houses of the town itself. It has a very fine portal and a pleasant court. It commemorates a very extraordinary character, who from being Cadi of Seville became in disguise a confectioner at Tlemçen. He was put to death apparently for spreading seditious doctrines, but his ghost having given some trouble he was canonized. It is said that Tlemçen was built on the site of a Roman camp called Pomaria. The name happily expresses the abundance of orchards by which it is surrounded. In February only a few almond trees are in blossom, but the ground is beginning to put forth its wild flowers. A diminutive iris is everywhere, and gives a blue tinge to the wayside, as the bluebells to an English copse. In April, when the trees are bursting into leaf and the whole country-side is full of flowers, Tlemçen must be set in a very bower of delight. And it is in the environs that the most interesting, picturesque and romantic of its antiquities are to be found. [Illustration: THE WALLS OF MANSOURA] Just outside the Fez gate of the city lies a great artificial basin or reservoir, now dry, which is said to have been constructed by a king of the fourteenth century to give his wife the pleasure of witnessing miniature sea-fights. It is related that Barbarossa drowned in it the descendants of the ancient kings whom he found at Tlemçen, and watched their struggles with glee. A short distance further on is an arch, ruthlessly restored, which was part of the wall of circumvallation built around Tlemçen by Abou Yakoub, Sultan of Fez, who besieged it from 1299 to 1307 A.D. A little further on are the extremely picturesque walls of Mansoura, the city which during the siege he built for himself. The story of this siege and of the building of Mansoura is very curious. It is told at length by the Arab chroniclers. Perhaps the following abbreviation of their account will suffice.