Now, Arab dogs are notoriously faithful to the members of their own households and equally unfriendly toward all strangers, so that though her own dogs fawned upon her and attempted to lick her hand, those of the sheikh snarled at sight of her and showed every sign of distrust. The judge promptly ordered her to be returned to her lawful husband—who, I fancy, punished her in true Arab fashion—and had the village placarded with a notice in Arabic which read: “The testimony of one dog is more to be believed than that of a townful of Arabs.” To appreciate how much more effective than any amount of fines or imprisonment this notice proved, one must remember that the deadliest insult an Arab can give another is to call him a dog. Perhaps it is because they live so far from the contaminating influence of civilisation, or what stands for civilisation in North Africa, that the lives of those women who dwell beneath the black camel's-hair tents of the Sahara are far freer and happier than those led by their urban cousins. Which reminds me of a little procession that I once met while riding through southern Algeria. It consisted of an Arab, his wife, and a donkey. The man strode in front, his rifle over his shoulder. Then came the donkey, bearing nothing heavier than its harness. In the rear trudged the wife, carrying the plough. Though the Arab women may, and probably do, till the fields yoked beside a camel, a donkey, or an ox, their faces are unveiled and they are permitted free intercourse with the men of their tribe. Even among the nomad desert folk, however, women are regarded with indifference and contempt, the Arabs saying of a boy “It is a benediction,” but of a girl “It is a malediction.” With the Arabs a woman is primarily regarded as a servant, and long before a daughter of the “Great Tents” has entered her teens she has been taught how to cut and fit a burnoose, to sew a tent cover, and to make a _couscous_, that peculiar dish of half-ground barley, raisins, honey, hard-boiled eggs, and mangled fowl, stewed with a gravy in a sealed vessel, of which the Arabs are so fond. By the time she is ten her parents have probably received and accepted an offer for her hand—and praise Allah for ridding them of her!—and by the time she is twelve she is married and a mother. When a match has been decided upon—and it is by no means an uncommon thing for an unborn child to become conditionally engaged—several days of haggling as to the price which is to be paid for her ensue, the bridegroom eventually getting her at a cost of several camels, cattle, or goats, her value being based upon her looks and the position of her parents. On the day of the wedding the bride—on whose unveiled face, remember, the bridegroom has never laid eyes—concealed within a swaying camel-litter which looks for all the world like a young balloon, preceded by a band and accompanied by all her relatives, is taken with much ceremony to her new home. When