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vast buildings. Besides the apartments for the $ultao ? 
*or his sons, for Mulei Abdsulem, and for the whole le- 
gions of women who belong to every one of them, it 
also contains several pleasure and kitchen gardens. 
The different officers belonging to the court have also 
their separate lodgings at the palace. Two mosques 
and immense court yards or squares where the sultan 
holds his meschouars or public audiences, form also a 
part of this labyrinth of walls, which gives them the ap- 
pearance of a town. The whole of it contains about 
three miles in circumference. 
In order to get into the real palace we must first pass 
the three immense court yards or squares of the mes- 
chouar, afterwards a 'fourth where the guard house is 
kept, then into another, in the middle of which is a cobba 
or small square house some feet higher than the ground. 
The interior of this house is covered with carpets and 
furnished with cushions. Here the high officers of the 
court and of the service are sitting to wait the orders from 
the sultan. It is like an anti-chamber; dinner and 
supper are served to those who stay there. This court 
yard leads into an anti-room where the pages and another 
guard are established, and thence into a garden which 
contains two small wooden houses, in one of which the 
sultan receives those who wait on him. 
The garden is of a regular form and planted with 
orange trees. It is handsome, regular, and contains many 
flowers and aromatic plants. The women never visit 
them; they have gardens to themselves, into which I 
could not get admittance. Between the two cobbas 
there is a small pillar on which an horizontal sun dial 
