Nowadays, however, these picturesque conveyances are beginning to be considered old-fashioned, and the natives crowd into the electric trams which run in all directions through the town and into the suburbs beyond. Alexandria is even more up-to-date than Cairo, for there not only tramcars but motor-omnibuses are to be seen. Morocco, another country of North Africa, although much nearer to Europe, is still very much behind the times, and therefore even more interesting, perhaps, than Algeria and Egypt. In Tangier, for instance, the streets are so steep and rough that only very primitive vehicles can be used, and most people, natives and Europeans alike, ride either on donkeys, mules, or ponies. [Illustration: IN MOROCCO.] The Sôk, or market-place, in this city is most picturesque, for there can be seen groups of pack-mules, laden and ready to start off on some long journey; ponies with women sitting on strange saddles set sideways like chairs, and Arab chiefs mounted on their magnificent horses. The market-place itself is very curious, with its whitewashed and narrow gateways, through which the mules with their large panniers can scarcely pass. CHAPTER VII JOURNEYS IN THE NEW WORLD From the Old World we go to the New, and see if we can find any curious vehicles in the great continents of America and Australia. Beginning with America, as that was the first of the new lands to be discovered, we will go back to the days when Red Indians lived in the forests and rode their wild, hardy ponies across the prairies. The Indians had no wheeled conveyances, but they harnessed their ponies to strange little sleds, which dragged on the ground and supported the long tent poles and heavy loads of household gear. These Red Indians were very brave but savage and treacherous, and they bitterly resented the coming of strangers into their land. The early settlers lived in constant dread of attack and massacre, and they were always armed when they cultivated their clearings in the forests or ventured further and further afield into the undiscovered country of the West. The conveyances used by the colonists of North America were large, hooded wagons, very much like those to be seen in Africa, and in these prairie schooners, as they were sometimes called, the pioneers carried their wives and their children out into the wilderness. [Illustration: AMERICAN TROTTER.] The wagons were drawn by teams of strong horses, mules, or oxen, and large numbers of emigrants generally travelled together. This was necessary, as small parties would almost certainly have been attacked by the Indians. Even when they did travel in company the colonists were not always safe, and a man who went to the West in 1850 tells a terrible story of his adventures. [Illustration: QUEBEC CALÈCHE.]