Ghardaia, the Mozabite capital, lies about a hundred miles to the northwest of Ourgla, in the middle of the Wadi M’zab, nearly eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is one of the most picturesque towns in the entire Sahara, its square, flat-topped houses, which are built on the flanks of a hill, rising in terraces, one above another, so that the place bears a certain resemblance to the New Mexican pyramid-pueblo of Taos. Crowning the hill is the _kasbah_, an ancient fortress with enormously thick ramparts, above which, like a slim white finger pointing toward heaven, soars the tapering minaret of the Grand Mosque. It is a profoundly impressive thing, this minaret, unusual in shape and clearly visible from every quarter of the city and from far off in the desert, as it rises in lonely majesty against the hot blue sky. Unlike most Saharan towns, whose houses are built of sun-dried mud-blocks, the buildings of Ourgla are substantially constructed from sandstone. They are, as a rule, of a blinding whiteness, by reason of repeated applications of lime-wash, but the dazzling monotony is broken here and there by house-owners, more original-minded than their neighbors, who have painted their dwellings lemon yellow, pale pink, cobalt blue. Wandering through the narrow, tortuous lanes, one frequently notices, pressed into the plaster above the lintels of the doors, the imprint of a hand painted in red or blue; this represents the hand of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, an emblem which is supposed to bring good luck to the household, like the horseshoe in Occidental countries. Ghardaia is divided by walls into three districts: the eastern quarter belongs to the Jews, of whom there are several hundred families in the town; the western is occupied by the Metabia, an Arab tribe from the Djebel Amur; while the central quarter, which contains the _kasbah_ and the Grand Mosque, is the home of the ruling race, the Beni-M’zab, to whom the gardens also belong. The Jews and the Arabs are regarded by the Mozabites as inferior peoples and have virtually no voice in the affairs of the community, the government of which, as I have already remarked, is directed by an assembly composed of Mozabite elders. Of all the Berber tribes the Mozabites have remained the freest from foreign admixture, their persistent refusal to have social intercourse with other tribes having produced so pronounced a type that even a Mozabite child is recognizable at a glance. They are usually of small and wiry figure, with very short necks, high, somewhat rounded shoulders, and under-developed legs which are frequently bowed. They are further distinguished from their Arab neighbors by flat faces, short noses, thick lips, and pale, almost sallow, skins, while one not infrequently sees a Mozabite with the red beard and blue or gray eyes which Genseric and his Vandal hordes left as a reminder of their visit to Berber Africa.