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 were present when a child cried and its mother hushed it. Some Arab chiefs allow European women to visit their wives, but it is not very interesting. They can’t speak a word of French, and they sit staring at the visitor with curious eyes, and touch her clothes to see how they are woven and put on. Occasionally one meets with women who have been to Europe, but, with few exceptions, they regret their ventures and are glad to return. There is one famous case of an Arab girl who drifted away from the South, crossed the sea, and eventually found herself in Paris, where she started dancing. She had an instantaneous success, and in a short time had visited London and New York, acclaimed wherever she went. It would be too long to go into all her adventures—suffice it to say that she was courted by all, that she met all kinds of interesting people; dressed in the smartest frocks, and lived on a lavish scale. One day she returned to Laghouat and she remained six months; during those six months she lived again as an Arab, then she went back to Paris, but it was too late. The South had seized her, her people had clutched her heart again, and she could no longer keep away. She returned to her home in the oasis. Nothing will now make her return to Europe, and she says that the only possible life for a woman is to be married to a nice Arab and shut up. The last time I saw her she was sitting on the floor of a roughly furnished room, barefooted, eating _kous-kous_ with her hands out of the same bowl with her servants! CHAPTER XII ARAB LOVE AND THE WOMEN OF THE RESERVED QUARTER By bracketing these two subjects together I do not wish it to be supposed that in Algeria the two are synonymous, though curiously enough there is none of that sordid atmosphere which is associated with women of easy morals in Europe. It is generally believed that the Arab man is a brute who uses women only for his pleasure, and that the Arab woman is a piece of furniture and accepts the situation. It is another legend.