Then the white figures and the lantern appeared again; another squib, another flash, another bang, Caesar galloping up and down over the roof, snorting his indignation, but not barking, probably because he felt "unable to do justice to the subject;" and at length, after the eleventh gun had belched forth crimson flames and foul smoke, all was peace, save a distant discord of tin trumpets, _gouals_ and _gimbris_, and I returned to my mosquito-haunted couch with a sigh of relief. Pass we now to the eve of "Christmas for Moros," and let ethnologist and hagiologist derive some satisfaction from the evidences I collected in this far-away Moorish town that the gladness of the Mahometan festival does, similarly to the purer joy of the Christian, though in a less degree perhaps, incline towards "peace and good-will to men," charity and kindliness. As we sat chatting that evening round the tea-table, to us entered Hamed, bearing, with honest pride illumining his brown features, a great tray of richly engraved brass, heaped up with curious but tempting-looking cakes. Gracefully presenting them to "the senora," he intimated that this was his humble offering or Christmas token of good-will towards the family, and that his mother (whom the good fellow maintains out of his modest wages) had made them with her own hands. The cakes were made of long thin strips of the finest paste, plentifully sweetened with delicious honey, twisted into quaint shapes, and fried in the purest of oil. I need hardly say that the children were delighted, and immediately commenced to court indigestion by a vigorous onslaught on the new and tempting sweets. Nay, why should I blush to confess that I myself have a very sweet tooth in my head, and such a liking for all things saccharine that my friends say jokingly that I must be getting into my second childhood?--an imputation which, as I am only a little on the wrong side of thirty, I can bear with equanimity. However, I firmly decline to inform an inquisitive public how many of those delightful Moorish cakes I ate: truth to tell, I do not remember; but I enjoyed them heartily, nor found my digestion impaired thereby. We had a little chat with Hamed--whose face was lighted up with the broadest of grins as we praised his mother's pastry and showed our appreciation of it in the most satisfactory manner--on certain matters of the Mahometan religion and the position of women in the future life. Some of the sterner Muslims believe that women have no souls; others opine that while good men go to "_Eljannah_," or heaven, and bad ones to "_Eljehannam_," or hell, women and mediocre characters are deported to a vague kind of limbo which they designate as "_Bab Maroksh_," or the Morocco Gate.