Though from the open patios, which served as stable-yards for camels, donkeys, goats, sheep, and chickens, a stench rose to high heaven, we were impressed with the scrupulous cleanliness which characterized the interiors of these underground dwellings: the earthen floors had been scrubbed and sanded; the beds were made up with spotless linen; the copper cooking-utensils hanging on the walls had been scoured until they shone like mirrors. Despite the fact that many of these troglodyte dwellings are thirty feet or more below the level of the ground, I should imagine that in dry weather they must be quite comfortable to live in—indifferently lighted, perhaps, but cool in summer and quite immune from the chilling winter winds. But I must confess that I should not care to live in one during the rainy season—and when it rains in Tunisia, it _rains_—for, though there is a certain amount of drainage, I could see no reason why a really torrential downpour would not transform the central courtyard, which is really nothing but a large well, into a cistern. [Illustration: THE SUN-GOD PAINTS HIS PICTURE IN THE WEST Have you ever seen a Saharan sunset? No? Then you have missed the sublimest spectacle that nature has to offer. On the palette of the sky the Almighty mixes His colors with a beauty of effect which is positively overwhelming—but, like all really beautiful things, it is of brief duration] In their stooped shoulders and prematurely wrinkled faces the Matmatam women show the effects of their bitter struggle for existence; but some of the young girls were really lovely, with slim, supple figures, clear olive skins, and large, lustrous eyes. At the house of the sheikh, with whom the guide we had brought from Gabés was acquainted, we found his wives and numerous children assembled in the courtyard to greet us; but in most of the other dwellings the women fled into their burrows on our approach and remained concealed until my departure, though, once I had left, they were shyly eager to welcome my wife and daughter, crowding about them, fingering their clothes, and asking innumerable questions.