After some time everybody rises and all the full-grown men close up and form a circle, tightly wedged together. The old sheikh steps into the centre and begins repeating more prayers, quietly at first then with restrained violence. The audience join in, chanting the Mohammedan creed. Gradually the singing grows louder, the voice of the sheikh is drowned, and the ring of white-robed men begin swaying to and fro, backwards and forwards, their voices become hoarse and raucous; every man jerks to and fro in a frenzy of religious excitement, and the prayer becomes a violent repetition of the word “Allah—’la, ’la, ’la.” Then the sheikh who leads the prayer gradually slows down, and the congregation repeat more quietly the Mohammedan creed, “La ilahi illa—llah, wa Mohammed rasul Allah”—there is no deity but God, and Mohammed the prophet of God. The contrast between the performers at the beginning of the zikr, when they are calm and grave, and at its close, when they are hot, dishevelled and exhausted, is very remarkable. Meanwhile the crowd in the Sidi Suliman square increases. From the various mosques come long processions of white-robed figures, singing and carrying banners; the light of their torches and lanterns flashes in and out as they slowly thread their way through the steep, winding streets of the town, and their voices become faint, then loud, as they pass through and out of the arches and tunnels. They assemble in the square, forming large circles and dancing zikrs. In one corner one sees a ring of old men singing and clashing cymbals; in another group there are a dozen men banging drums, while a half-naked young negro in their midst twirls rapidly round and round, then suddenly falls to the ground and rolls over and over till he reaches the tomb itself, where he is lifted up by his admiring and applauding friends and carried away unconscious. Behind the tomb there are fires where the drums can be warmed, in order to tighten their parchment. Numbers of women squat on the outskirts of the crowd, huddled in their dark robes, hardly visible, except when the moon gleams on their silver ornaments and pale white faces. Some of them are burning incense in little earthenware braziers, and occasionally one of them creeps up to the white tomb and kisses the wall, if she can reach it before being driven off by the ghaffirs—watchmen. [Illustration: A “FANTASIA” AT THE TOMB OF SIDI SULIMAN]