After the party had spent an hour in the Place Royale, with a short walk in the Bab-el Ouad, the guide conducted them up a narrow and irregular street to the upper town, where the scene became vastly more interesting because it was novel and strange. "I should think we were back in Mogadore," said Mrs. Belgrave, the only Oriental city she or any of the other passengers had ever seen, and every person and object commanded their attention. The people of this section were nearly all Mohammedans, and the few women they saw were veiled. Most of them were fat and dumpy, for obesity is a chief attraction in an Oriental belle. The Nubians were jet black, but they were as closely veiled as those who were whiter. Many mosques were in sight all the time, and the commander spoke to the guide about them. "There are one hundred mosques and marabouts in the city," said he. "What are marabouts?" asked the captain, and all the others were gathered around him to hear what was said; and the natives gazed at them as much in wonder as the tourists at the strange sight before them. "A marabout is a tomb, or the sanctuary of a saint, and some of them are very elegant edifices." "What is this in front of us?" "That is a _mesjid_, which means a second-class mosque, as you Americans would say. The principal ones are called _djamas_, and some of them are very elegant. The tomb of a dey or a very rich pacha is often exceedingly fine." "The houses here are very queer, Mr. Belgrave," said Miss Blanche; "but they are like those we saw in Mogadore, and not at all like those in the lower town." "That is a French town, and I saw two or three buildings five and six stories high. They have earthquakes here, and I should rather be in one of these Moorish houses than on the sixth floor of one of those lofty structures," replied Louis, who had read up a little as soon as he returned to the ship. "These dwellings all have flat roofs, Miss Blanche. Do you know why that is so?" "So that the rain can get into them, I should suppose," replied the beautiful maiden; and not only the French but the Moors had paused to get a second look at her. "Hardly for that; but as soon as the sun has gone down, in the cool of the evening, the people pass their time on the roof. I read some stories by a French writer who had spent some time in Algeria, and he speaks of passing his evenings on the roof of the house he had hired, a Moorish house in Bougie, on the seashore." "These houses have no windows, as we understand the word," said Blanche, who was taking in all the strange sight before her. "They are nothing but peek-holes, with iron bars, which make them look like so many prisons." "These houses would not suit us any better than ours would the people who live in them. These narrow streets keep out much of the glare of the hot sun, and make the place cooler than it would otherwise be. You noticed the same thing in Cadiz and Seville, and it is an Oriental idea."