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Show pJiithf Jeofieea:nrmenMcom- M w" y nnts t0' and t truly exhilarating spectacle to behold Z front of tt 8.hl? aira and graces in ttontof the grated casement which he who s there to look at him is an rnrlv the day PU,g Ut the rooms f In countries like Tripoli, Tunis and Morocco where MohanWdan bigotry seems to have found its lasted most impregnable stronghold, the elusion of the sex is naturally more rigorous than 5f-. In r MoslL town of North Africa you see one huge, massive stone building .towering high above the filthy, tumbledown burrows around it and yon are told that this is the house of some native prince or "Bassah" (grandee), and that behind the small, grated windows which are visible far up in its high, blank, dungeon like wall the imprisoned beauties of his harem are peering out at that mvsterioua outer world which they, like all oriental women, wo-men, see only as a peep show. When one of these "little great men-adds men-adds another specimen to this museum of caged birds-i. e. takes a new wife-yon can, if you choose, witness the greater part of the marriage ceremonies, such aa they are. You can see the unfortunate villagers from the bride's native district filing over the hills in a hot and dusty procession, laden with the wedding presents pres-ents upon which they are forced to waste as much money as a month's hard labor conld earn. You can watch the white cloaked, red girdled horsemen of the Bassah's guard circling at full gallop around the bridal train, shouting their native war cry and filing their long riflea in the air, while the clouds of smoke that curl around this demon dance give quite an unearthly aspect to the dark, fierce faces and tossing arms as they loom spectrally through it. You can look your fill at the red capped cap-ped foot soldiers moving in a rhythmic dance before the eyes of their master, in time to the cadence of a slow, dirge like chant and the deep booming roll of the Moorish drum, tossing their guns into the air and catching them again at every step. But all that you will see of the bride herself is a large covered litter girthed on the back of ahorse or a camel, behind the embroidered curtains of which, deafened with the hideous uproar, up-roar, sickened by the stench of burned powder, tortured by a splitting headache, and not particularly consoled by the prospect of a life long imprisonment with an ugly old fat man for her jailer, lies the poor girl in honor of whose misery mis-ery all this fuss is being made. To such a pitch of jealous watchfulness watchful-ness is this strange system carried that the mere suspicion of a wish on the part of any foreigner to approach or even to look passingly at a Moslem woman has often cost that foreigner Wb life. I myself, my-self, while rambling around the outskirts of a mountain fortress among the hills bordering the Sahara desert, happened to follow a goat path which seemed to offer me a short cut back to the town and suddenly found myself in the midst of a native camp which had been pitched in a hollow at the foot of the precipice on which the fortress stood. Instantly a tall, bony, savage looking Arab stalked forth from the nearest tent, and, with an ominous motion of his gaunt brown hand toward the long dagger in his crimson girdle, sternly demanded what I was doing do-ing there. I expluined at once, but I could see plainly that the worthy barbarian barba-rian did not believe a word I said, and that, had he followed his own inclination, inclina-tion, he would have killed me there and then. David Kkr. "OHAMMEDAN WOMEN IN AFRICA, j Ker Describe- tha Jealous -rTateli. rnlness They Live Under. fcopyright by American Press Association. Tradition tella of an innocent country h from the west of England who, 'SSg made the nsnal trip to .PrigSS-- |