Sooner or later every visitor to Tunis finds his way, or is led by his guide, to the Souk-el-Attarin, the street of the perfume-sellers. Architecturally, this is one of the finest bazaars in the city and probably one of the oldest. From its hole-in-the-wall shops drift the scents of all the world—attar of roses and ambergris, musk and incense, violet and orange-flower, jasmine and lily-of-the-valley. Before the shops stand sacks stuffed with the dried leaves of aromatic plants from which is made the incense used in the mosques and the henna with which the native beauties redden their hair and their finger-tips and the soles of their feet, for even the veiled women of the East are addicted to the use of war-paint. The scents are very powerful, and for toilet purposes must be largely diluted with alcohol. Nor are they by any means inexpensive, even according to American standards, a tiny vial of certain of the rarer essences frequently costing several hundred francs. They are sold in slender, fragile bottles, charmingly decorated with gold and color, but, unfortunately, their glass stoppers rarely fit, and, as my wife and daughter learned by costly experience, the scent will evaporate unless the stopper is replaced with a cork. Here one’s nostrils are assailed not only by the old familiar perfumes but by the strange scents characteristic of the East—musk, amber, incense, attar of roses, and, of course, the celebrated _parfum du bey_. The last-named is the royal scent, a composite essence, the odor of which is alleged to change from hour to hour and which is unobtainable, at least in theory, save by those connected with the court or who are honored by the bey. The perfume-sellers are the aristocrats of the _souks_, claiming to be descended from the Moors who were expelled from Spain and to possess the keys of the Andalusian castles owned by their ancestors. Be this as it may, they are very haughty and condescending, deeming it vastly beneath their dignity to haggle with their customers or to solicit the patronage of the passers-by. In fact, these small, luxuriously furnished shops, with their silken cushions, their seven-branched candlesticks, their array of slim, glass-stoppered bottles inscribed in gilt with mysterious Arab characters, and the hint of incense in the air, resemble shrines of Venus rather than places of business, the sleek, urbane proprietors exhibiting their wares with the reverence of officiating priests.