Proceeding on our inspection, we passed through a succession of small courts and corridors, as if we were in the under-story of a palace. There were four houses joined together by doors broken through the wall: these houses are fitted one against the other like so many boxes, the lights coming from the court in the centre of each. In the kitchens there was a great assortment of wood dishes, like low corn measures, scrubbed white, as in Switzerland; rows of round pots, in which the fires are made, called _nafé_; and kuskoussoo dishes of pottery called Keskas, the covers in thick close basket-work, ornamented with colours. Every place, thing, corner, was most perfectly sweet and clean. On entering the store rooms it seemed as if we had penetrated into a chamber at Pompeii. (The whole establishment recalled Pompeii.) Jars of the shape and dimensions of amphoræ, only transversed at the point, stood in rows containing, not, indeed, Falernian wine, but kuskoussoo, pease, butter, rice, and even fresh meat. After it is packed, butter is kneaded hard into the orifice, and water is poured over it. Homer says, that in Lybia neither prince nor peasant wants for food, and this was confirmed by the large scale on which the arrangements were here made to meet the demands of hospitality. One of the court-yards, with an adjoining kitchen and store, was appropriated to cooking food, to be sent out to friends and strangers. We now entered a court which rivalled the first apartment--all white, light and airy. At each of the angles there was a group of three columns, and from them sprang a lofty fretted arch, which occupied the centre of each of the faces. A narrow cornice in coloured stucco under the projecting eaves ran all round; so the stuccoes of Spain are not a lost art. From this truly barbaresque hall, open to the heavens, we passed into the women’s principal apartment. It was a long and very narrow room, entered in the centre by lofty folding doors: the wicket only was open. At each extremity was a bed filling the width of the apartment, raised high and concealed by brocade curtains. In two successive stages were mattresses piled and covered with rich stuffs, and cushions, serving for divans by day and beds by night. The open space in the centre was covered with a mat, and there were low narrow seats around of folded carpets and coverlids. On each side of the door were wardrobe chests. The room, to the height of four and a half feet, was hung with red velvet, inlaid to imitate mosaics; but perhaps the mosaics may be the imitation with velvet of other colours.