FOOTNOTES:

ON THE ROAD TO MARRAKESHON THE ROAD TO MARRAKESH

We rode past the low-walled gardens, where pomegranate and apricot trees were flowering, and strange birds I did not know sang in the deep shade. Doves flitted from branch to branch, bee-eaters darted about among mulberry and almond trees. There was an overpowering fragrance from the orange groves, where blossom and unplucked fruit showed side by side; the jessamine bushes were scarcely less fragrant. Spreading fig-trees called every passer to enjoy their shade, and the little rivulets, born of the Tensift's winter floods to sparkle through the spring and die in June, were fringed with willows. It was delightful to draw rein and listen to the plashing of water and the cooing of doves, while trying in vain to recognise the most exquisite among many sweet scents.

Under one of the fig-trees in a garden three Moors sat at tea. A carpet was spread, and I caught a glimpse of the copper kettle, the squat charcoal brazier tended by a slave, the quaint little coffer filled no doubt with fine green tea, the porcelain dish of cakes. It was a quite pleasing picture, at which, had courtesy permitted, I would have enjoyed more than a brief glance.

The claim of the Moors upon our sympathy and admiration is made greater by reason of their love for gardens. As a matter of fact, their devotion may be due in part to the profit yielded by the fruit, but one could afford to forget that fact for the time being, when Nature seemed to be giving praise to the Master of all seasons for the goodly gifts of the spring.

We crossed the Tensift by the bridge, one of the very few to be found in Southern Morocco. It has nearly thirty arches, all dilapidated as the city walls themselves, yet possessing their curious gift of endurance. Even the natives realise that their bridge is crumbling into uselessness, after nearly eight centuries of service, but they do no more than shrug their shoulders, as though to cast off the burden of responsibility and give it to destiny. On the outskirts of the town, where gardens end and open market-squares lead to the gates, a small group of children gathered to watch the strangers with an interest in which fear played its part. We waited now to see the baggage animals before us, and then M'Barak led the way past the mosque at the side of the Bab el Khamees and through the brass-covered doors that were brought by the Moors from Spain. Within the Khamees gate, narrow streets with windowless walls frowning on either side shut out all view, save that which lay immediately before us.

A MINSTRELA MINSTREL

No untrained eye can follow the winding maze of streets in Marrakesh, and it is from the Moors we learn that the town, like ancient Gaul of Cæsar'sCommentaries, has three well defined divisions. The Kasbah is the official quarter, where the soldiers and governing officials have their home, and the prison called Hib Misbah receives all evil-doers, and men whose luck is ill. The Madinah is the general Moorish quarter, and embraces the Kaisariyah or bazaar district, where the streets are parallel, well cleaned, thatched with palm and palmetto against the light, and barred with a chain at either end to keep the animals from entering. The Mellah (literally "salted place") is the third great division of Marrakesh, and is the Jewish quarter. In this district, or just beyond it, are a few streets that seem reserved to the descendants of Mulai Ismail's black guards, from whom our word "blackguard" should have come to us, but did not. Within these divisions streets, irregular and without a name, turn and twist in manner most bewildering, until none save old residents may hope to know their way about. Pavements are unknown, drainage is in its most dangerous infancy, the rainy season piles mud in every direction, and, as though to test the principle embodied in the homoeopathic theory, the Marrakshis heap rubbish and refuse in every street, where it decomposes until the enlightened authorities who dwell in the Kasbah think to give orders for its removal. Then certain men set out with donkeys and carry the sweepings of the gutters beyond the gates.[18]This work is taken seriously in the Madinah, but in the Mellah it is shamefully neglected, and I have ridden through whole streets in the last-named quarter searching vainly for a place clean enough to permit of dismounting. Happily, or unhappily, as you will, the inhabitants are inured from birth to a state of things that must cause the weaklings to pay heavy toll to Death, the Lord who rules even Sultans.

I had little thought to spare for such matters as we rode into Marrakesh for the first time. The spell of the city was overmastering. It is certainly the most African city in Morocco to-day, almost the last survivor of the changes that began in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and have brought the Dark Continent from end to end within the sphere of European influence. Fez and Mequinez are cities of fair men, while here on every side one recognised the influence of the Soudan and the country beyond the great desert. Not only have the wives and concubines brought from beyond the great sand sea darkened the skin of the present generation of the Marrakshis, but they have given to most if not to all a suggestion of relationship to the negro races that is not to be seen in any other Moorish city I have visited. It is not a suggestion of fanaticism or intolerance. By their action as well as their appearance one knew most of the passers for friends rather than enemies. They would gratify their curiosity at our expense as we gratified ours at theirs, convinced that all Europeans are harmless, uncivilised folk from a far land, where people smoke tobacco, drink wine, suffer their women-folk to go unveiled, and live without the True Faith.

Marrakesh, like all other inland cities of Morocco, has neither hotel nor guest-house. It boasts some large fandaks, notably that of Hadj Larbi, where the caravans from the desert send their merchandise and chief merchants, but no sane European will choose to seek shelter in a fandak in Morocco unless there is no better place available. There are clean fandaks in Sunset Land, but they are few and you must travel far to find them. I had letters to the chief civilian resident of Marrakesh, Sidi Boubikir, British Political Agent, millionaire, land-owner, financier, builder of palaces, politician, statesman, and friend of all Englishmen who are well recommended to his care. I had heard much of the clever old Moor, who was born in very poor surroundings, started life as a camel driver, and is now the wealthiest and most powerful unofficial resident in Southern Morocco, if not in all the Moghreb, so I bade M'Barak find him without delay. The first person questioned directed us to one of Boubikir's fandaks, and by its gate, in a narrow lane, where camels jostled the camp-mules until they nearly foundered in the underlying filth, we found the celebrated man sitting within the porch, on an old packing-case.

He looked up for a brief moment when the kaid dismounted and handed him my letter, and I saw a long, closely-shaven face, lighted by a pair of grey eyes that seemed much younger than the head in which they were set, and perfectly inscrutable. He read the letter, which was in Arabic, from end to end, and then gave me stately greeting.

"You are very welcome," he said. "My house and all it holds are yours."

I replied that we wanted nothing more than a modest shelter for the days of our sojourn in the city. He nodded.

"Had you advised me of your visit in time," he said, "my best house should have been prepared. Now I will send with you my steward, who has the keys of all my houses. Choose which you will have." I thanked him, the steward appeared, a stout, well-favoured man, whose djellaba was finer than his master's. Sidi Boubikir pointed to certain keys, and at a word several servants gathered about us. The old man said that he rejoiced to serve the friend of his friends, and would look forward to seeing me during our stay. Then we followed into an ill-seeming lane, now growing dark with the fall of evening.

We turned down an alley more muddy than the one just left behind, passed under an arch by a fruit stall with a covering of tattered palmetto, caught a brief glimpse of a mosque minaret, and heard the mueddin calling the Faithful to evening prayer. In the shadow of the mosque, at the corner of the high-walled lane, there was a heavy metal-studded door. The steward thrust a key into its lock, turned it, and we passed down a passage into an open patio. It was a silent place, beyond the reach of the street echoes; there were four rooms built round the patio on the ground floor, and three or four above. One side of the tower of the minaret was visible from the courtyard, but apart from that the place was nowhere overlooked. To be sure, it was very dirty, but I had an idea that the steward had brought his men out for business, not for an evening stroll, so I bade Salam assure him that this place, known to the Marrakshis as Dar al Kasdir,[19]would serve our purposes.

A thundering knock at the gate announced a visitor, one of Sidi Boubikir's elder sons, a civil, kindly-looking Moor, whose face inspired confidence. Advised of our choice he suggested we should take a stroll while the men cleaned and prepared the patio and the rooms opening upon it. Then the mules, resting for the time in his father's fandak, would bring their burdens home, and we could enjoy our well-earned rest.

ONE OF THE CITY GATESONE OF THE CITY GATES

We took this good counsel, and on our return an hour later, a very complete transformation had been effected. Palmetto brooms, and water brought from an adjacent well, had made the floor look clean and clear. The warmth of the air had dried everything, the pack-mules had been relieved of their load and sent back to the stable. Two little earthen braziers full of charcoal were glowing merrily under the influence of the bellows that M'Barak wielded skilfully, and two earthen jars of water with palm leaves for corks had been brought in by our host's servants. In another hour the camp beds were unpacked and made up, a rug was set on the bedroom floor, and the little table and chairs were put in the middle of the patio. From the alcove where Salam squatted behind the twin fires came the pleasant scent of supper; M'Barak, his well-beloved gun at his side, sat silent and thoughtful in another corner, and the tiny clay bowl of the Maalem's long wooden kief pipe was comfortably aglow.

There was a timid knock at the door, the soldier opened it and admitted the shareef. I do not know his name nor whence he came, but he walked up to Salam, greeted him affectionately, and offered his services while we were in the city. Twenty years old perhaps, at an outside estimate, very tall and thin and poorly clad, the shareef was not the least interesting figure I met in Marrakesh. A shareef is a saint in Morocco as in every other country of Islam, and his title implies descent from Mohammed. He may be very poor indeed, but he is more or less holy, devout men kiss the hem of his djellaba, no matter how dirty or ragged it may be, and none may curse a shareef's ancestors, for the Prophet was one of them. His youthful holiness had known Salam in Fez, and had caught sight of him by Boubikir's fandak in the early afternoon. Salam, himself a chief in his own land, though fallen on evil days then and on worse ones since, welcomed the newcomer and brought his offer to me, adding the significant information that the young shareef, who was too proud to beg, had not tasted food in the past forty-eight hours. He had then owed a meal to some Moor, who, following a well-known custom, had set a bowl of food outside his house to conciliate devils. I accepted the proffered service, and had no occasion to regret my action. The young Moor was never in the way and never out of the way, he went cheerfully on errands to all parts of the city, fetched and carried without complaint, and yet never lost the splendid dignity that seemed to justify his claim to saintship.

So we took our ease in the open patio, and the shareef's long fast was broken, and the stars came to the aid of our lanterns, and when supper was over I was well content to sit and smoke, while Salam, M'Barak, the Maalem, and the shareef sat silent round the glowing charcoal, perhaps too tired to talk. It was very pleasant to feel at home after two or three weeks under canvas below Mediunah and along the southern road.

The Maalem rose at last, somewhat unsteadily after his debauch of kief. He moved to where our provisions were stocked and took oil and bread from the store. Then he sought the corner of the wall by the doorway and poured out a little oil and scattered crumbs, repeating the performance at the far end of the patio. This duty done, he bade Salam tell me that it was a peace-offering to the souls of the departed who had inhabited this house before we came to it. I apprehend they might have resented the presence of the Infidel had they not been soothed by the Maalem's little attention. He was ever a firm believer in djinoon, and exorcised them with unfailing regularity. The abuse he heaped on Satan must have added largely to the burden of sorrows under which we are assured the fallen angel carries out his appointed work. He had been profuse in his prayers and curses when we entered the barren pathway of the Little Hills behind the plains of Hillreeli, and there were times when I had felt quite sorry for Satan. Oblation offered to the house spirits, the Maalem asked for his money, the half due at the journey's end, sober enough, despite the kief, to count the dollars carefully, and make his farewell with courteous eloquence. I parted with him with no little regret, and look forward with keen pleasure to the day when I shall summon him once again from the bakehouse of Djedida to bring his mules and guide me over the open road, perchance to some destination more remote. I think he will come willingly, and that the journey will be a happy one. The shareef drew the heavy bolt behind the Maalem, and we sought our beds.

It was a brief night's rest. The voice of the mueddin, chanting the call to prayer and the Shehad,[20]roused me again, refreshed. The night was passing; even as the sonorous voice of the unseen chanted his inspiring "Allah Akbar," it was yielding place to the moments when "the Wolf-tail[21]sweeps the paling east."

I looked out of my little room that opened on to the patio. The arch of heaven was swept and garnished, and from "depths blown clear of cloud" great stars were shining whitely. The breeze of early morning stirred, penetrating our barred outer gates, and bringing a subtle fragrance from the beflowered groves that lie beyond the city. It had a freshness that demanded from one, in tones too seductive for denial, prompt action. Moreover, we had been rising before daylight for some days past in order that we might cover a respectable distance before the Enemy should begin to blaze intolerably above our heads, commanding us to seek the shade of some chance fig-tree or saint's tomb.

So I roused Salam, and together we drew the creaking bolts, bringing the kaid to his feet with a jump. There was plenty of time for explanation, because he always carried his gun, at best a harmless weapon, in the old flannel case secured by half a dozen pieces of string, with knots that defied haste. He warned us not to go out, since the djinoon were always abroad in the streets before daylight; but, seeing our minds set, he bolted the door upon us, as though to keep them from the Dar al Kasdir, and probably returned to his slumbers.

A BLIND BEGGARA BLIND BEGGAR

Beyond the house, in a faint glow that was already paling the stars, the African city, well-nigh a thousand years old, assumed its most mysterious aspect. The high walls on either side of the roads, innocent of casements as of glass, seemed, in the uncertain light, to be tinted with violet amid their dull grey. The silence was complete and weird. Never a cry from man or beast removed the first impression that this was a city of the dead. The entrances of the bazaars in the Kaisariyah, to which we turned, were barred and bolted, their guardians sat motionless, covered in white djellabas, that looked like shrouds. The city's seven gates were fast closed, though doubtless there were long files of camels and market men waiting patiently without. The great mansions of the wazeers and the green-tiled palace of Mulai Abd-el-Aziz—Our Victorious Master the Sultan—seemed unsubstantial as one of those cities that the mirage had set before us in the heart of the R'hamna plains. Salam, the untutored man from the far Riff country, felt the spell of the silent morning hour. It was a primitive appeal, to which he responded instantly, moving quietly by my side without a word.

"O my masters, give charity; Allah helps helpers!" A blind beggar, sitting by the gate, like Bartimæus of old, thrust his withered hand before me. Lightly though we had walked, his keen ear had known the difference in sound between the native slipper and the European boot. It had roused him from his slumbers, and he had calculated the distance so nicely that the hand, suddenly shot out, was well within reach of mine. Salam, my almoner, gave him a handful of the copper money, calledfloos, of which a score may be worth a penny, and he sank back in his uneasy seat with voluble thanks, not to us, but to Allah the One, who had been pleased to move us to work his will. To me no thanks were due. I was no more than Allah's unworthy medium, condemned to burn in fires seven times heated, for unbelief.

From their home on the flat house-tops two storks rose suddenly, as though to herald the dawn; the sun became visible above the city's time-worn walls, and turned their colouring from violet to gold. We heard the guards drawing the bars of the gate that is called Bab al Khamees, and knew that the daily life of Marrakesh had begun. The great birds might have given the signal that woke the town to activity.

Straightway men and beasts made their way through the narrow cobbled lanes. Sneering camels, so bulked out by their burdens that a foot-passenger must shrink against the wall to avoid a bad bruising; well-fed horses, carrying some early-rising Moor of rank on the top of seven saddle-cloths; half-starved donkeys, all sores and bruises; one encountered every variety of Moorish traffic here, and the thoroughfare, that had been deserted a moment before, was soon thronged. In addition to the Moors and Susi traders, there were many slaves, black as coal, brought in times past from the Soudan. From garden and orchard beyond the city the fruit and flowers and vegetables were being carried into their respective markets, and as they passed the air grew suddenly fragrant with a scent that was almost intoxicating. The garbage that lay strewn over the cobbles had no more power to offend, and the fresh scents added in some queer fashion of their own to the unreality of the whole scene.

To avoid the crush we turned to another quarter of the city, noting that the gates of the bazaars were opened, and that only the chains were left across the entrance. But the tiny shops, mere overgrown packing-cases, were still locked up; the merchants, who are of higher rank than the dealers in food-stuffs, seldom appear before the day is aired, and their busiest hours are in the afternoon, when the auction is held. "Custom is from Allah," they say, and, strong in this belief, they hold that time is only valuable as leisure. And, God wot, they may well be wiser herein than we are.

A demented countryman, respected as a saint by reason of his madness, a thing of rags and tatters and woefully unkempt hair, a quite wild creature, more than six feet high, and gaunt as a lightning-smitten pine, came down the deserted bazaar of the brass-workers. He carried a long staff in one hand, a bright tin bowl in the other. The sight of a European heightened his usual frenzy—

Across his sea of mindA thought came streaming like a blazing shipUpon a mighty wind.

I saw the sinews stand out on the bare arm that gripped the staff, and his bright eyes were soon fixed upon me. "You do not say words to him, sir," whispered Salam; "he do'n know what he do—he very holy man."

The madman spat on my shadow, and cursed profoundly, while his passion was mastering him. I noted with interest in that uncomfortable moment the clear signs of his epileptic tendencies, the twitching of the thumb that grasped the stick, the rigidity of the body, the curious working of certain facial muscles. I stood perfectly still, though my right hand involuntarily sought the pocket of my coat where my revolver lay, the use of which save in direst necessity had been a mad and wicked act; and then two peace-loving Moors, whose blue selhams of fine Manchester cloth proclaimed their wealth and station, came forward and drew the frenzied creature away, very gently and persuasively. He, poor wretch, did not know what was taking place, but moved helplessly to the door of the bazaar and then fell, his fit upon him. I hurried on. Moors are kindly, as well as respectful, to those afflicted of Allah.

We passed on our way to the Bab Dukala, the gate that opens out upon Elhara, the leper quarter. There we caught our morning view of the forest of date-palm that girdles the town. Moors say that in centuries long past Marrakesh was besieged by the men of Tafilalt, who brought dates for food, and cast the stones on the ground. The rain buried them, the Tensift nourished them, and to-day they crowd round Ibn Tachfin's ruinous city, 'their feet in water and their heads in fire.' 'Tis an agreeable legend.

A WANDERING MINSTRELA WANDERING MINSTREL

Market men, half naked and very lean, were coming in from Tamsloht and Amsmiz, guiding their heavy-laden donkeys past the crumbling walls and the steep valley that separates Elhara from the town. Some scores of lepers had left their quarters, a few hiding terrible disfigurement under great straw hats, others quite careless of their deplorable disease. Beggars all, they were going on their daily journey to the shrine of Sidi bel Abbas, patron of the destitute, to sit there beneath the zowia's ample walls, hide their heads in their rags, and cry upon the passers to remember them for the sake of the saint who had their welfare so much at heart. And with the closing of the day they would be driven out of the city, and back into walled Elhara, to such of the mud huts as they called home. Long acquaintance with misery had made them careless of it. They shuffled along as though they were going to work, but from my shaded corner, where I could see without being seen, I noted no sign of converse between them, and every face that could be studied was stamped with the impress of unending misery.

The scene around us was exquisite. Far away one saw the snow-capped peaks of the Atlas; hawks and swallows sailed to and from Elhara's walls; doves were cooing in the orchards, bee-eaters flitted lightly amid the palms. I found myself wondering if the lepers ever thought to contrast their lives with their surroundings, and I trusted they did not. Some few, probably, had not been lepers, but criminals, who preferred the horrid liberty of Elhara to the chance of detection and the living death of the Hib Misbah. Other beggars were not really lepers, but suffered from one or other of the kindred diseases that waste Morocco. In Marrakesh the native doctors are not on any terms with skilled diagnosis, and once a man ventures into Elhara, he acquires a reputation for leprosy that serves his purpose. I remember inquiring of a Moorish doctor the treatment of a certain native's case. "Who shall arrest Allah's decree?" he began modestly. And he went on to say that the best way to treat an open wound was to put powdered sulphur upon it, and apply a light.[22]Horrible as this remedy seems, the worthy doctor believed in it, and had sent many a True Believer to—Paradise, I hope—by treating him on these lines. Meanwhile his profound confidence in himself, together with his knowledge and free use of the Koran, kept hostile criticism at bay.[23]

We turned back into the city, to see it in another aspect. The rapid rise of the sun had called the poorer workers to their daily tasks; buyers were congregating round the market stalls of the dealers in meat, bread, vegetables, and fruit. With perpetual grace to Allah for his gift of custom, the stall-keepers were parting with their wares at prices far below anything that rules even in the coast towns of the Sultan's country. The absence of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz and his court had tended to lower rates considerably. It was hard to realise that, while food cost so little, there were hundreds of men, women, and children within the city to whom one good meal a day was something almost unknown. Yet this was certainly the case.

Towering above the other buyers were the trusted slaves of the wazeers in residence—tall negroes from the far South for the most part—hideous men, whose black faces were made the more black by contrast with their white robes. They moved with a certain sense of dignity and pride through the ranks of the hungry freemen round them; clearly they were well contented with their lot—a curious commentary upon the European notions of slavery—based, to be sure, upon European methods in regard to it. The whole formed a marvellous picture, and how the pink roses, the fresh, green mint and thyme, the orange flowers and other blossoms, sweetened the narrow ways, garbage-strewn under foot and roofed overhead with dried leaves of the palm!

FOOTNOTES:[17]"Moghreb-al-Acksa."[18]Street cleaners are paid out of the proceeds of a tax derived from the slaughter of cattle, and the tax is known to Moorish butchers by a term signifying "floosof the throat."[19]I.e.The Tin House.[20]Declaration of Faith.[21]The false dawn.[22]The Sultan Mulaz-Abd-el-Aziz was once treated for persistent headache by a Moorish practitioner. The wise man's medicine exploded suddenly, and His Majesty had a narrow escape. I do not know whether the practitioner was equally fortunate.[23]The doctors and magicians of Morocco have always been famous throughout the East. Nearly all the medicine men of theThousand Nights and a Nightincluding the uncle of Aladdin, are from the Moghreb.

[17]"Moghreb-al-Acksa."

[18]Street cleaners are paid out of the proceeds of a tax derived from the slaughter of cattle, and the tax is known to Moorish butchers by a term signifying "floosof the throat."

[19]I.e.The Tin House.

[20]Declaration of Faith.

[21]The false dawn.

[22]The Sultan Mulaz-Abd-el-Aziz was once treated for persistent headache by a Moorish practitioner. The wise man's medicine exploded suddenly, and His Majesty had a narrow escape. I do not know whether the practitioner was equally fortunate.

[23]The doctors and magicians of Morocco have always been famous throughout the East. Nearly all the medicine men of theThousand Nights and a Nightincluding the uncle of Aladdin, are from the Moghreb.

THE ROOFS OF MARRAKESHTHE ROOFS OF MARRAKESH

"Speaking of thee comforts me, and thinking of thee makes me glad."—Râod el Kartas.

"Speaking of thee comforts me, and thinking of thee makes me glad."

—Râod el Kartas.

The charm of Marrakesh comes slowly to the traveller, but it stays with him always, and colours his impressions of such other cities as may attract his wandering footsteps. So soon as he has left the plains behind on his way to the coast, the town's defects are relegated to the background of the picture his memory paints. He forgets the dirty lanes that serve for roads, the heaps of refuse at every corner, the pariah curs that howled or snapped at his horse's heels when he rode abroad, the roughness and discomfort of the accommodation, the poverty and disease that everywhere went hand in hand around him.

But he remembers and always will remember the city in its picturesque aspects. How can he forget Moorish hospitality, so lavishly exercised in patios where the hands of architect and gardener meet—those delightful gatherings of friends whose surroundings are recalled when he sees, even in the world of the West—

Groups under the dreaming garden trees,And the full moon, and the white evening star.

He will never forget the Kutubia tower flanking the mosque of the Library, with its three glittering balls that are solid gold, if you care to believe the Moors (and who should know better!), though the European authorities declare they are but gilded copper. He will hear, across all intervening sea and lands, the sonorous voices of the three blind mueddins who call True Believers to prayer from the adjacent minarets. By the side of the tower, that is a landmark almost from R'hamna's far corner to the Atlas Mountains, Yusuf ibn Tachfin, who built Marrakesh, enjoys his long, last sleep in a grave unnoticed and unhonoured by the crowds of men from strange, far-off lands, who pass it every day. Yet, if the conqueror of Fez and troubler of Spain could rise from nine centuries of rest, he would find but little change in the city he set on the red plain in the shadow of the mountains. The walls of his creation remain: even the broken bridge over the river dates, men say, from his time, and certainly the faith and works of the people have not altered greatly. Caravans still fetch and carry from Fez in the north to Timbuctoo and the banks of the Niger, or reach the Bab-er-rubb with gold and ivory and slaves from the eastern oases, that France has almost sealed up. The saints' houses are there still, though the old have yielded to the new. Storks are privileged, as from earliest times, to build on the flat roofs of the city houses, and, therefore, are still besought by amorous natives to carry love's greeting to the women who take their airing on the house-tops in the afternoon. Berber from the highlands; black man from the Draa; wiry, lean, enduring trader from Tarudant and other cities of the Sus; patient frugal Saharowi from the sea of sand,—no one of them has altered greatly since the days of the renowned Yusuf. And who but he among the men who built great cities in days before Saxon and Norman had met at Senlac, could look to find his work so little scarred by time, or disguised by change? Twelve miles of rampart surround the city still, if we include the walls that guard the Sultan's maze garden, and seven of the many gates Ibn Tachfin knew are swung open to the dawn of each day now.

After the Library mosque, with its commanding tower and modest yet memorable tomb, the traveller remembers the Sultan's palace, white-walled, green-tiled, vast, imposing; and the lesser mosque of Sidi bel Abbas, to whom the beggars pray, for it is said of him that he knew God. The city's hospital stands beside this good man's grave. And here one pays tribute also to great Mulai Abd el Kader Ijjilalli, yet another saint whose name is very piously invoked among the poor. The mosque by the Dukala gate is worthy of note, and earns the salutation of all who come by way of R'hamna to Marrakesh. The Kaisariyah lingers in the memory, and on hot days in the plains, when shade is far to seek, one recalls a fine fountain with the legend "drink and admire," where the water-carriers fill their goat-skins and all beggars congregate during the hours of fire.

The Mellah, in which the town Jews live, is reached by way of the Olive Garden. It is the dirtiest part of Marrakesh, and, all things considered, the least interesting. The lanes that run between its high walls are full of indescribable filth; comparison with them makes the streets of Madinah and Kasbah almost clean. One result of the dirt is seen in the prevalence of a very virulent ophthalmia, from which three out of four of the Mellah's inhabitants seem to suffer, slightly or seriously. Few adults appear to take exercise, unless they are called abroad to trade, and when business is in a bad way the misery is very real indeed. A skilled workman is pleased to earn the native equivalent of fourteenpence for a day's labour, beginning at sunrise, and on this miserable pittance he can support a wife and family. Low wages and poor living, added to centuries of oppression, have made the Morocco Jew of the towns a pitiable creature; but on the hills, particularly among the Atlas villages, the People of the Book are healthy, athletic, and resourceful, able to use hands as well as head, and the trusted intermediary between Berber hillman and town Moor.

A GATEWAY, MARRAKESHA GATEWAY, MARRAKESH

Being of the ancient race myself, I was received in several of the show-houses of the Mellah—places whose splendid interiors were not at all suggested by the squalid surroundings in which they were set. This is typical to some extent of all houses in Morocco, even in the coast towns, and greatly misleads the globe-trotter. There was a fine carving and colouring in many rooms, but the European furniture was, for the most part, wrongly used, and at best grotesquely out of place. Hygiene has not passed within the Mellah's walls, but a certain amount of Western tawdriness has. Patriarchal Jews of good stature and commanding presence had their dignity hopelessly spoilt by the big blue spotted handkerchief worn over the head and tied under the chin; Jewesses in rich apparel seemed quite content with the fineness within their houses, and indifferent to the mire of the streets.

I visited three synagogues, one in a private house. The approaches were in every case disgusting, but the synagogues themselves were well kept, very old, and decorated with rare and curious memorial lamps, kept alight for the dead through the year of mourning. The benches were of wood, with straw mats for cover; there was no place for women, and the seats themselves seemed to be set down without attempt at arrangement. The brasswork was old and fine, the scrolls of the Law were very ancient, but there was no sign of wealth, and little decoration. In the courtyard of the chief synagogue I found school-work in progress. Half a hundred intelligent youngsters were repeating the master's words, just as Mohammedan boys were doing in the Madinah, but even among these little ones ophthalmia was playing havoc, and doubtless the disease would pass from the unsound to the sound. Cleanliness would stamp out this trouble in a very little time, and preserve healthy children from infection. Unfortunately, the administration of this Mellah is exceedingly bad, and there is no reason to believe that it will improve.

When the Elevated Court is at Marrakesh the demand for work helps the Jewish quarter to thrive, but since the Sultan went to Fez the heads of the Mellah seem to be reluctant to lay out even a few shillings daily to have the place kept clean. There are no statistics to tell the price that is paid in human life for this shocking neglect of the elementary decencies, but it must be a heavy one.

Business premises seem clean enough, though the approach to them could hardly be less inviting. You enter a big courtyard, and, if wise, remain on your horse until well clear of the street. The courtyard is wide and cared for, an enlarged edition of a patio, with big store-rooms on either side and stabling or a granary. Here also is a bureau, in which the master sits in receipt of custom, and deals in green tea that has come from India via England, and white sugar in big loaves, and coffee and other merchandise. He is buyer and seller at once, now dealing with a native who wants tea, and now with an Atlas Jew who has an ouadad skin or a rug to sell; now talking Shilha, the language of the Berbers, now the Moghrebbin Arabic of the Moors, and again debased Spanish or Hebrew with his own brethren. He has a watchful eye for all the developments that the day may bring, and while attending to buyer or seller can take note of all his servants are doing at the stores, and what is going out or coming in. Your merchant of the better class has commercial relations with Manchester or Liverpool; he has visited England and France; perhaps some olive-skinned, black-eyed boy of his has been sent to an English school to get the wider views of life and faith, and return to the Mellah to shock his father with both, and to be shocked in turn by much in the home life that passed uncriticised before. These things lead to domestic tragedies at times, and yet neither son nor father is quite to blame.

The best class of Jew in the Mellah has ideas and ideals, but outside the conduct of his business he lacks initiative. He believes most firmly in the future of the Jewish race, the ultimate return to Palestine, the advent of the Messiah. Immersed in these beliefs, he does not see dirt collecting in the streets and killing little children with the diseases it engenders. Gradually the grime settles on his faith too, and he loses sight of everything save commercial ends and the observances that orthodoxy demands. His, one fears, is a quite hopeless case. The attention of philanthropy might well turn to the little ones, however. For their sake some of the material benefits of modern knowledge should be brought to Jewry in Marrakesh. Schools are excellent, but children cannot live by school learning alone.

Going from the Mellah one morning I saw a strange sight. By the entrance to the salted place there is a piece of bare ground stretching to the wall. Here sundry young Jews in black djellabas sat at their ease, their long hair curled over their ears, and black caps on their heads in place of the handkerchiefs favoured by the elders of the community. One or two women were coming from the Jewish market, their bright dresses and uncovered faces a pleasing contrast to the white robes and featureless aspect of the Moorish women. A little Moorish boy, seeing me regard them with interest, remarked solemnly, "There go those who will never look upon the face of God's prophet," and then a shareef, whose portion in Paradise was of course reserved to him by reason of his high descent, rode into the open ground from the Madinah. I regret to record the fact that the holy man was drunk, whether upon haschisch or the strong waters of the infidel, I know not, and to all outward seeming his holiness alone sufficed to keep him on the back of the spirited horse he bestrode. He went very near to upsetting a store of fresh vegetables belonging to a True Believer, and then nearly crushed an old man against the wall. He raised his voice, but not to pray, and the people round him were in sore perplexity. He was too holy to remove by force and too drunk to persuade, so the crowd, realising that he was divinely directed, raised a sudden shout. This served. The hot-blooded Barb made a rush for the arcade leading to the Madinah and carried the drunken saint with him, cursing at the top of his voice, but sticking to his unwieldy saddle in manner that was admirable and truly Moorish. If he had not been holy he would have been torn from his horse, and, in native speech, would have "eaten the stick," for drunkenness is a grave offence in orthodox Morocco.

A COURTYARD, MARRAKESHA COURTYARD, MARRAKESH

They have a short way with offenders in Moorish cities. I remember seeing a man brought to the Kasbah of a northern town on a charge of using false measures. The case was held proven by the khalifa; the culprit was stripped to the waist, mounted on a lame donkey, and driven through the streets, while two stalwart soldiers, armed with sticks, beat him until he dropped to the ground. He was picked up more dead than alive, and thrown into prison.

There are two sorts of market in Marrakesh—the open market outside the walls, and the auction market in the Kaisariyah. The latter opens in the afternoon, by which time every little boxlike shop is tenanted by its proprietor. How he climbs into his place without upsetting his stores, and how, arrived there, he can sit for hours without cramp, are questions I have never been able to answer, though I have watched him scores of times. He comes late in the day to his shop, lets down one of the covering flaps, and takes his seat by the step inside it. The other flap has been raised and is kept up by a stick. Seated comfortably, he looks with dispassionate eye upon the gathering stream of life before him, and waits contentedly until it shall please Allah the One to send custom. Sometimes he occupies his time by reading in the Perspicuous Book; on rare occasions he will leave his little nest and make dignified way to the shop of an adool or scribe, who reads pious writings to a select company of devotees. In this way the morning passes, and in the afternoon the mart becomes crowded, country Moors riding right up to the entrance chains, and leaving their mules in the charge of slaves who have accompanied them on foot. Town buyers and country buyers, with a miscellaneous gathering of tribesmen from far-off districts, fill the bazaar, and then the merchants hand certain goods to dilals, as the auctioneers are called. The crowd divides on either side of the bazaar, leaving a narrow lane down the centre, and the dilals rush up and down with their wares,—linen, cotton and silk goods, carpets, skins or brassware, native daggers and pistols, saddles and saddle-cloths. The goods vary in every bazaar. The dilal announces the last price offered; a man who wishes to buy must raise it, and, if none will go better, he secures the bargain. A commission on all goods sold is taken at the door of the market by the municipal authorities. I notice on these afternoons the different aspects of the three classes represented in the bazaar. Shopkeepers and the officials by the gate display no interest at all in the proceedings: they might be miles from the scene, so far as their attitude is a clue. The dilals, on the other hand, are in furious earnest. They run up and down the narrow gangway proclaiming the last price at the top of their voices, thrusting the goods eagerly into the hands of possible purchasers, and always remembering the face and position of the man who made the last bid. They have a small commission on the price of everything sold, and assuredly they earn their wage. In contrast with the attitudes of both shopkeepers and auctioneers, the general public is inclined to regard the bazaar as a place of entertainment. Beggar lads, whose scanty rags constitute their sole possession, chaff the excited dilals, keeping carefully out of harm's way the while. Three-fourths of the people present are there to idle the afternoon hours, with no intention of making a purchase unless some unexpected bargain crosses their path. I notice that the dilals secure several of these doubtful purchasers by dint of fluent and eloquent appeals. When the last article has been sold and the crowd is dispersing, merchants arise, praise Allah, who in his wisdom sends good days and bad, step out of their shop, let down one flap and raise the other, lock the two with a huge key and retire to their homes.

I remember asking a Moor to explain why the Jews were so ill-treated and despised all over Morocco. The worthy man explained that the Koran declares that no True Believer might take Jew or Christian to be his friend, that the Veracious Book also assures the Faithful that Jews will be turned to pigs or monkeys for their unbelief, and that the metamorphosis will be painful. "Moreover," said the True Believer, who did not know that I was of the despised race, "do you not know that one of these cursed people tried to seize the throne in the time of the great Tafilatta?"

I pleaded ignorance.

"Do you not know the Feast of Scribes, that is held in Marrakesh and Fez?" he asked.

Again I had to make confession that, though I had heard about the Feast, I had never witnessed it.

"Only Allah is omniscient," he said by way of consolation. "Doubtless there are some small matters known to Nazarenes and withheld from us—strange though that may seem to the thoughtful.

"In the name of the Most Merciful—know that there was a ruler in Taza before Mulai Ismail—Prince of the Faithful, he who overcame in the name of God—reigned in the land. Now this ruler[24]had a Jew for wazeer. When it pleased Allah to take the Sultan and set him in the pavilion of Mother of Pearl appointed for him in Paradise, in the shadow of the Tuba tree, this Jew hid his death from the people until he could seize the throne of Taza for himself and ride out under the M'dhal.[25]Then Mulai Ismail protested to the people, and the Tolba (scribes) arranged to remove the reproach from the land. So they collected forty of their bravest men and packed them in boxes—one man in a box. They put two boxes on a mule and drove the twenty mules to the courtyard of the palace that the Jew had taken for himself. The man in charge of the mules declared he had a present for the Sultan, and the Unbeliever, whose grave was to be the meeting-place of all the dogs of Taza, gave orders that the boxes should be brought in and set before him. This was done, and the cursed Jew prepared to gloat over rich treasure. But as each box was opened a talib rose suddenly, a naked sword in his hand, and falling bravely upon the unbelieving one, cut his body to pieces, while Shaitan hurried his soul to the furnace that is seven times heated and shall never cool.

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