some of them incredibly young---hammering away at copper vessels of all shapes and sizes, while the shop-owner instructs ,and sometimes takes a hand with a hammer himself. In the background, a tiny

apprentice blows a big charcoal fire with a huge leather bellows worked by a string attached to his big toe--the red of the live coals glowing bright ,and then dimming rhythmically to the strokes of the

bellows.

Here you can find beautiful pots and bowls engraved with delicate and intricated traditional designs, or the simple,everyday kitchenware used in this country, pleasing in form, but undecorated and strictly

functional.

Elsewhere there is the carpet-market,with its profusion of rich colours, varied textures and regional designs---some blold and simple, others unbelievably detailed and yet harmonious. Then there is the

spice-market, with its pungent and exotic smells; and the food market, where you can buy everything you need for the most sumptuous dinner,or sit in a tiny restautant with porters and apprentices and eat

your humble bread and cheese.The dye-market, the pottery-market and the carpenters' market lie elsewhere in the maze of vaulted streets which honeycomb, this bazaar. Every here and there, a doorway gives a

glimpse of a sunlit courtyard, perhaps before a mosque or a caravaneral, where camels lie disdainfully chewing their hay, while the great bales of merchandise they have carried hundreds of miles across the

desert lie beside them.

Perhaps the most unforgettable thing in the bazaar , apart from its general atmosphere, is the place where they make linseed oil. It is a vast,sombre cavern of a room, some thirty feet high and sixty feet

square, and so thick with the dust of centuries that the mudbrick walls and vaulted rood are only dimly visible. In this cavern are three massive stone wheels, each with a huge pole through its centre as an

axle. The pole is attached at the one end to and upright post, around which it can revolve, and at the other to a blind-folded camel, which walks constantly in a circle, providing the motive power to turn

the stone wheel. This revolves in a circular stone channel, into which an attendant feeds linseed. The stone wheel crushes it to a pulp,which is then pressed to extract the oil. The camels are the largest

and finest I have ever seen, and in superb condition---muscular,massive,and stately.

The pressing of the linseed pulp to extract the oil is done by a vast ramshackle apparatus of beams and ropes and pulleys which towers to the vaulted celling and dwarfs the camels and their stone wheels. The

machine is operatedby one man, who shovels the linseed pulp into a stone vat, climb up nimbly to a dizzy height to fsten ropes, and then throws his weight on to a great beam made out of a tree trunk to set

the ropes and pulleys in motion. Ancient girders creak and groan, ropes tighten and then a trickle of oil oozes down a stone runnel into a used petrol can. Quickly the trickle becomes a flood of gilistening英语作文