The Souk-el-Blagdjia, the shoemakers’ bazaar, is a long narrow, winding thoroughfare somewhat reminiscent of the Street of the Shoemakers in Athens. It possesses no architectural attractions, but the dyed goatskins hung up before the shops form charming bits of color. Here are made the soft, heelless slippers of lemon or pomegranate color which the natives wear and which the Arab keeps on so easily, to the mystification of Europeans; of course it is only by shuffling that they can be kept from falling off. To see an Arab shuffling along in his saffron-colored slippers is to realize the true significance of the term “slipshod,” for they are utterly incompatible with energy or haste. Leaving the bazaars by the Bab Souika, one finds himself in the narrow Rue Halfaouine. This thoroughfare might more appropriately be called the Street of the Barbers, for in no other city have I ever seen so many tonsorial establishments in so short a distance. This multiplicity of barber-shops is explainable, perhaps, by the fact that Tunisian barbers do not confine themselves to the duties customarily associated with that calling, but are likewise manicurists, pedicurists, dentists, and, on occasion, surgeons. They stand ready alike to trim your beard, to shave your head—taking care of course, should you be a Moslem, to leave the little topknot whereby, on the Judgment Day, the faithful may be jerked to heaven—to manicure your hands, to care for your feet, to extract your teeth, to cup or bleed you, and to perform any other minor operation. In warm weather all of these are performed in the publicity of the open street, thus giving the barber a better opportunity to gossip with his friends and providing entertainment for the passers-by. By way of giving confidence to his prospective victims and for purposes of advertising, the barber sometimes has before his place of business two glass show-cases lined with velvet. One is filled with the molars, canines, incisors, and bicuspids which he has extracted. In the other, arranged like a collection of white and yellow butterflies, are neatly mounted rows of corns! CHAPTER IV MID PLEASURES AND PALACES