Leaving this beautiful building with regret, a short walk brought us to the necropolis of the Holy City—two square miles of countless graves. Scattered about in all directions were memorials of every shape and form: pillars of marble covered with elaborate tracery, and crowned with a wide-spreading turban; white and grey slabs bearing long and ornate inscriptions in Kufic; and monuments of every century since Kairwán was founded,—lay piled one upon another in the confusion of decay. From these unequalled memorials of the past the history of Arab dominion in North Africa will probably be re-written. Skirting the city walls and traversing the suburb of the Kubliyeh, passing _en route_ a mosque with a _minár_ almost as much out of the perpendicular as the Tower of Pisa, we come to a great _zaouia_ near the Bab-el-Djelladín. Almost one-half of the inhabitants of Kairwán are members of the Confraternity of the Aïssaouia. The Zaouia Sidi Bou Aïssa is their sanctuary, and scene of their mystic rites. Passing into a courtyard, we were welcomed by the local chief of the sect, Sy Hamuda Ben Aïssa, who led the way to the main building. The college of Sidi Bou Aïssa consists of a cupola some thirty feet high, flanked by two aisles containing six arches each, all of which rest on an irregular arrangement of fine old Roman shafts and capitals: both the dome and the arcade on either side of it were festooned with ostrich-eggs, gilt balls, and small lamps; and on the walls were suspended the tambourines, earthenware drums, swords, metal prongs, and banners, which constitute the stock-in-trade of the establishment. Nobody acquainted with the rites and practices of the Aïssaouia could ever believe that the slender, olive-complexioned, gentle-mannered, and courteous Sy Hamuda was the head and moving spirit of such a brotherhood as this. The Aïssaouia form one of those semi-religious orders which, as I have stated before, render modern Islamism, as far as the North African littoral is concerned, a sort of freemasonry. The followers of other associations are to be found in all parts of the Moslem world; but the Aïssaouia belong exclusively to the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Their founder was Muhammed Bou Aïssa of Mequinez, in Morocco. Next to their headquarters at Mequinez itself, Kairwán is the most important seat of their power. As far as can be ascertained, the Aïssaouia have no decided political sympathies. Visitors in Algeria are often admitted to their rites, and they have in some places become almost as much a matter of show as dancing-girls and Arab concerts. Not so at Kairwán. Here till the 7th November no Christian foot had ever passed the threshold of the Zaouia Sidi Bou Aïssa. Here its ceremonies and observances are carried out on a very imposing scale, and from Kairwán the minor congregations of Southern and Northern Tunis receive their instructions and commands. The guiding principle of the Aïssaouia