In a little recess, about half-way down the hill, heeding nothing--wholly lost in reverie it would seem--sat two venerable, turbaned men. They had long beards and their faces were fine and dignified. These were holy men, the guides told us, and very sacred. I did not understand just why they were holy--a mere trip to Mecca would hardly have made them as holy as that, I should think--and nobody seemed to know the answer when I asked about it. Then I asked if I might photograph them, but I could see by the way our guide grabbed at something firm to sustain himself that it would be just as well not to press the suggestion. I was not entirely subdued, however, and pretty soon hunted up further trouble. A boy came along with one of the copper water-jars--a small one--probably children's size. I made a dive for him and proposed buying it; that is, I held out money and reached for the jar. He probably thought I wanted a drink, and handed it to me, little suspecting my base design. But when he saw me admiring the jar itself and discussing it with Laura, who was waiting rather impatiently while our party was drifting away, he reached for it himself, and my money did not seem to impress him. Now I suspect that those jars are not for sale. This one had a sort of brass seal with a number and certain cryptic words on it which would suggest some kind of record. As likely as not those jars are all licensed, and for that boy to have parted with his would have landed us both in a donjon keep. I don't know in the least what a donjon keep is, but it sounds like a place to put people for a good while, and I had no time then for experimental knowledge. Our friends had already turned a corner when we started on and we hurried to catch up, not knowing whether or not we should ever find them again. We came upon them at last peering into an Arab school. The teacher, who wore a turban, sat cross-legged on a raised dais, and the boys, who wore fezzes--there were no girls--were grouped on either side--on a rug--their pointed shoes standing in a row along the floor. They were reciting in a chorus from some large cards--the Koran, according to the guide--and it made a queer clatter. It must have struck their dinner-hour, just then, for suddenly they all rose, and each in turn made an obeisance to the teacher, kissed his hand, slipped on a pair of little pointed shoes and swarmed out just as any school-boy in any land might do. Only they were not so noisy or impudent. They were rather grave, and their curiosity concerning us was not of a frantic kind. They were training for the life of contemplation, no doubt; perhaps even to be holy men.