The _souks_, though far smaller than those of Tunis and Algiers, are not materially different from the bazaars of other North African cities, the turbaned merchants sitting somnolently before little open-fronted booths whose interiors are stacked high with merchandise; while artisans, too poor to be lethargic, industriously ply their trades wherever they can find elbow-room and space for a work-bench. It is a busy place, is Constantine, the shopping center of the extensive province which bears its name, and widely known for the manufacture of the richly decorated saddlery affected by the Arab horsemen, for the embossing and engraving of copper and brass utensils, and for the weaving of the _haiks_ and burnouses which form such important articles of native dress, and of other garments, called _gandourahs_, the best of which are made partly of wool and partly of silk. The best way to obtain an idea of Constantine life is to take a seat before one of the numerous cafés which front upon the Place de la Brèche—so named from the breach that was here made in the walls by the French storming battalions in ’37—and over an _apéritif_ watch the motley throng. Here East and West meet and mingle on equal terms, for the population of the city is about equally divided between natives and Europeans. French officers rub shoulders with Arab sheikhs; Greek and Maltese traders haggle with Berber farmers and Kabyle mountaineers; Catholic priests nod to Moslem mollahs and Jewish rabbis; fashionably clad women from the Paris boulevards glance askance at veiled women from the Turkish harems: white troopers of the _chasseurs d’Afrique_ joke with tall black _tirailleurs_ from the banks of the Niger. The Jews of Constantine, who number several thousand, are the finest specimens of their race to be found in the entire East, showing a breeding and refinement rarely found among their coreligionists of the littoral. The Jewesses—many of whom, particularly the young girls, are strikingly handsome, with fine features and clear olive skins—retain their distinctive and highly picturesque costume, characterized by richly embroidered gowns of plush or velvet, gaily colored shawls, and, as might be expected, enormous quantities of heavy, ornate jewelry, which jingles at every movement of the wearer like the pole-chains of a four-in-hand. The older women wear a most curious and striking head-dress, consisting of a gilt-spangled veil surmounted by a high, pointed cone of velvet, in shape somewhat like a dunce’s cap, which, in the case of the rich, is held in place by massive golden chains. The girls and the younger married women, however, have modified this rather trying form of head-gear into a jaunty sort of bonnet, usually of pink, pale-blue, or emerald-green velvet, which they wear tilted rakishly above their raven locks in a fashion which is both coquettish and becoming.