The town Arabs live in comfortable houses. Most of these are of a single story, though some are of two; they enclose a central open court; they are flat-roofed; a large gateway gives entrance to the court, and is high enough for a man on horseback to ride through. The flat house tops make a favorite resting-place in the cool of the day. Streets in Arab towns are narrow, crooked, and filthy. In Arab towns are noticed at once many domes and minarets: the domes usually mark some famous grave; the minarets, mosques. These graves are those of some pious Mohammedan saint. There are thousands of them to which the Arabs flock to say their prayers and to be cured of disease. Often at such tombs dervishes go through with their strange performances. Some pierce themselves with swords, with no signs of pain; others spin around and around on their heels until one wearies of watching them, and wonders why they do not fall. The town Arab is more particular about his religion than the Bedouin dweller in the desert. He must—and every good Mohammedan _should_—wash his hands before eating; he must pray five times a day with his face turned toward Mecca. Mecca is so sacred to them because it was the home of Mohammed; every Arab and other good Mohammedan tries, once in his life, to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he must see the _Kaabah_, or black-stone. Arabs are much given to pious exclamations. Thus before eating or beginning any business they say _Bismallah_, which means _In God’s name_, and on finishing the meal or successfully completing the business they say _Hamdouallah_, _Praise God_. This piety does not interfere with the town Arab driving hard bargains in business. He loves trade and money. He frequently goes in caravans to trade in other places. The Arabs, too, are the slave-traders in Africa. This cruel business has not yet been stopped completely. The traders buy negroes where they can, and hunt them almost like wild animals when they cannot buy them. In some places the hunted beings take refuge in trees, which have been prepared as places of safety from which they defend themselves. Formerly the Arabs were more important than now. Seven or eight hundred years ago Arabia was the world’s centre of learning—or at least the Arab cities were. At a time, when Europe had lost much of what she once possessed, the Arab world was full of philosophers, physicians, poets, and astrologers. From the Arabs Europe gained much of the knowledge that we now possess. But those bright days of Arabian glory are past. To-day the boys in Arab schools learn little but reading, writing, and arithmetic. They learn long passages from the Koran—the sacred book of Mohammedanism. The little fellows—for girls do not go to school—sit on the floor, and all study aloud, the louder the better, because then the teacher will know that they _are_ studying. XXII. THE PEOPLES OF AFRICA: KABYLES.