That many of these Mauresque women of the coast towns are very beautiful—just as many others are exceedingly ugly—there is but little doubt, though they are so sheeted, shrouded, veiled, and draped from prying masculine eyes that a man may know of their beauty only by hearsay. I imagine that the dress of the Mauresque woman was specially designed to baffle masculine curiosity, for if Aphrodite herself were enveloped in a white linen sheet from head to waist, and in enormous and ridiculous pantaloons from waist to ankle, she could go where she pleased without being troubled by admirers. Not only is a Mauresque woman never permitted to see a man—or rather, the man is not permitted to see her, for despite all precautions she sometimes manages to catch glimpses of people through the lattices of her harem windows—but she may not receive a visit from her father or brother without her husband's permission. When she is ill enough to require the services of a physician—and she has to be very ill indeed before one is summoned—incredibly elaborate are the preparations. All the women of her household are ranged about the bed, while her servants hide her under the bedclothes almost to the point of suffocation. If her pulse has to be felt a servant covers her hand and arm so carefully that only an inch or so of her wrist is visible. If she has hurt her shoulder, or back, or leg, a hole is made in the bedclothes so that the doctor may just be able to see the injured place, and nothing more. Should he have the hardihood to insist on looking at her tongue, the precautions are still more elaborate, the attendants covering the patient's face with their hands and just leaving room between their fingers so that her tongue may be stuck out. I know a French physician in Tunis who told me that he was once called to attend the favourite wife of a wealthy Arab merchant, and that while he was conducting the examination the lady's husband stood behind him with the muzzle of a revolver pressed into the small of his back. [Illustration: JEWISH WOMEN IN THE CEMETERY OF TUNIS. “They believe that the spirits of the dead revisit the earth, and hence the weekly pilgrimage to the cemetery to keep them company.”]