They have their little balconies, their rows of little columns; they are so fashioned that the daylight shows through them.

Some are far away in the distance; others quite close, pointing straight into the sky above our heads.

No matter where one looks--as far as the eye can see--still there are others; all of the same familiar colour, a brown turning into rose.
The most ancient of them, those of the old easy-tempered times, bristle with shafts of wood, placed there as resting-places for the great free birds of the air, and vultures and ravens may always be seen perched there, contemplating the horizon of the sands, the line of the yellow solitudes.
Three thousand mosques! Their great straight walls, a little severe perhaps, and scarcely pierced by their tiny ogive windows, rise above the height of the neighbouring houses.

These walls are of the same brown colour as the minarets, except that they are painted with horizontal stripes of an old red, which has been faded by the sun; and they are crowned invariably with a series of trefoils, after the fashion of battlements, but trefoils which in every case are different and surprising.
Before the mosques, which are raised like altars, there is always a flight of steps with a balustrade of white marble.

From the door one gets a glimpse of the calm interior in deep shadow.