On another afternoon we sat at lunch in the grateful sombre shade of a fig-tree. Beyond the little stone dyke that cut the meadow from the arable land a negro ploughed with an ox and an ass, in flat defiance of Biblical injunction. The beasts were weary or lazy, or both, and the slave cursed them with an energy that was wonderful for the time of day. Even the birds had ceased to sing, the cicadas were silent in the tree tops, and when one of the mules rolled on the ground and scattered its pack upon all sides, the Maalem was too exhausted to do more than call it the "son of a Christian and a Jew."



Down the track we had followed came a fair man, of slight build, riding a good mule. He dismounted by the tree to adjust his saddle, tighten a stirrup thong, and say a brief prayer. Then, indifferent to the heat, he hurried on, and Salam, who had held short converse with him, announced that he was an emissary of Bu Hamara the Pretender, speeding southward to preach the rising to the Atlas tribes. He carried his life in his hands through the indifferently loyal southern country, but the burden was not heavy enough to trouble him. Bu Hamara, the man no bullets could injure, the divinely directed one, who could call the dead from their pavilion in Paradise to encourage the living, had bade him go rouse the sleeping southerners, and so he went, riding fearlessly into the strong glare that wrapt and hid him. His work was for faith or for love: it was not for gain. If he succeeded he would not be rewarded, if he failed he would be forgotten.

Very often, at morning, noon, and sunset, we would meet the r'kass or native letter-carrier, a wiry man from the Sus country, more often than not, with naked legs and arms. In his hand he would carry the long pole that served as an aid to his tired limbs when he passed it behind his shoulders, and at other times helped him to ford rivers or defend himself against thieves. An eager, hurrying fellow was the r'kass, with rarely enough breath to respond to a salutation as he passed along, his letters tied in a parcel on his back, a lamp at his girdle to guide him through the night, and in his wallet a little bread or parched flour, a tiny pipe, and some kief. Only if travelling in our direction would he talk, repaying himself for the expenditure of breath by holding the stirrup of mule or horse. Resting for three to five hours in the twenty-four, sustaining himself more with kief than with bread, hardened to a point of endurance we cannot realise, the r'kass is to be met with on every Moorish road that leads to a big city—a solitary, brave, industrious man, who runs many risks for little pay. His letters delivered, he goes to the nearest house of public service, there to sleep, to eat sparingly and smoke incessantly, until he is summoned to the road again. No matter if the tribes are out on the warpath, so that the caravans and merchants may not pass,—no matter if the powder "speaks" from every hill,—the r'kass slips through with his precious charge, passing lightly as a cloud over a summer meadow, often within a few yards of angry tribesmen who would shoot him at sight for the mere pleasure of killing. If the luck is against him he must pay the heaviest penalty, but this seldom occurs unless the whole country-side is aflame. At other times, when there is peace in the land, and the wet season has made the unbridged rivers impassable, whole companies of travellers camp on either side of some river—a silver thread in the dry season, a rushing torrent now. But the r'kass knows every ford, and, his long pole aiding him, manages to reach his destination. It is his business to defy Nature if necessary, just as he defies man in the pursuit of his task. He is a living proof of the capacity and dogged endurance still surviving in a race Europeans affect to despise.

We met slaves-dealers too from time to time, carrying women and children on mules, while the men slaves walked along at a good pace. And the dealers by no means wore the villainous aspect that conventional observers look to see, but were plainly men bent upon business, travelling to make money. They regarded the slaves as merchandise, to be kept in tolerably fair condition for the sake of good sales, and unless Ruskin was right when he said that all who are not actively kind are cruel, there seemed small ground on which to condemn them. To be sure, they were taking slaves from market to market, and not bringing Soudanese captives from the extreme South, so we saw no trace of the trouble that comes of forced travel in the desert, but even that is equally shared by dealers and slave alike.

The villages of Morocco are no more than collections of conical huts built of mud and wattle and palmetto, or goat and camel skins. These huts are set in a circle all opening to the centre, where the live-stock and agricultural implements are kept at night. The furniture of a tent is simple enough. Handloom and handmill, earthenware jars, clay lamps, a mattress, and perhaps a tea-kettle fulfil all requirements.

A dazzling, white-domed saint's shrine within four square walls lights the landscape here and there, and gives to some douar such glory as a holy man can yield when he has been dead so long that none can tell the special direction his holiness took. The zowia serves several useful purposes. The storks love to build upon it, and perhaps the influence of its rightful owner has something to do with the good character of the interesting young birds that we see plashing about in the marshes, and trying to catch fish or frogs with something of their parents' skill. Then, again, the zowia shelters the descendants of the holy man, who prey upon passers in the name of Allah and of the departed.

Beyond one of the villages graced with the shrine of a forgotten saint, I chanced upon a poor Moorish woman washing clothes at the edge of a pool. She used a native grass-seed in place of soap, and made the linen very white with it. On a great stone by the water's edge sat a very old and very black slave, and I tried with Salam's aid to chat with him. But he had no more than one sentence. "I have seen many Sultans," he cried feebly, and to every question he responded with these same words. Two tiny village boys stood hand in hand before him and repeated his words, wondering. It was a curious picture and set in striking colour, for the fields all round us were full of rioting irises, poppies, and convolvuli; the sun that gilded them was blazing down upon the old fellow's unprotected head. Gnats were assailing him in legions, singing their flattering song as they sought to draw his blood.[13] Before us on a hill two meadows away stood the douar, its conical huts thatched with black straw and striped palmetto, its zowia with minaret points at each corner of the protecting walls, and a stork on one leg in the foreground. It cost me some effort to tear myself away from the place, and as I remounted and prepared to ride off the veteran cried once more, "I have seen many Sultans." Then the stork left his perch on the zowia's walls, and settled by the marsh, clapping his mandibles as though to confirm the old man's statement, and the little boys took up the cry, not knowing what they said. He had seen many Sultans. The Praise to Allah, so had not I.



By another douar, this time on the outskirts of the R'hamna country, we paused for a mid-day rest, and entered the village in search of milk and eggs. All the men save one were at work on the land, and he, the guardian of the village, an old fellow and feeble, stood on a sandy mound within the zariba. He carried a very antiquated flint-lock, that may have been own brother to Kaid M'Barak's trusted weapon. I am sure he could not have had the strength to fire, even had he enjoyed the knowledge and possessed the material to load it. It was his business to mount guard over the village treasure. The mound he stood upon was at once the mat'mora that hid the corn store, and the bank that sheltered the silver dollars for whose protection every man of the village would have risked his life cheerfully. The veteran took no notice of our arrival: had we been thieves he could have offered no resistance. He remained silent and stationary, unconscious that the years in which he might have fulfilled his trust had gone for ever. All along the way the boundaries of arable land were marked by little piles of stones and I looked anxiously for some sign of the curious festival that greets the coming of the new corn, a ceremony in which a figure is made for worship by day and sacrifice by night; we were just too late for it. For the origin of this sacrifice the inquirer must go back to the time of nature worship. It was an old practice, of course, in the heyday of Grecian civilisation, and might have been seen in England, I believe, little more than twenty years ago.

Claims for protection are made very frequently upon the road. There are few of the dramatic moments in which a man rushes up, seizes your stirrup and puts himself "beneath the hem of your garment," but there are numerous claims for protection of another sort. In Morocco all the Powers that signed the Treaty of Madrid are empowered to grant the privilege. France has protected subjects by the thousand. They pay no taxes, they are not to be punished by the native authorities until their Vice-Consul has been cited to appear in their defence, and, in short, they are put above the law of their own country and enabled to amass considerable wealth. The fact that the foreigner who protects them is often a knave and a thief is a draw-back, but the popularity of protection is immense, for the protector may possibly not combine cunning with his greed, while the native Basha or his khalifa quite invariably does. British subjects may not give protection,—happily the British ideals of justice and fair-play have forbidden the much-abused practice,—and the most the Englishman can do is to enter into a trading partnership with a Moor and secure for him a certificate of limited protection called "mukhalat," from the name of the person who holds it. Great Britain has never abused the Protection system, and there are fewer protected Moors in the service or partnership of Britons throughout all Morocco than France has in any single town of importance.

If I had held the power and the will to give protection, I might have been in Morocco to-day, master of a house and a household, drawing half the produce of many fields and half the price of flocks of sheep and herds of goats. Few mornings passed without bringing some persecuted farmer to the camp, generally in the heat of the day, when we rested on his land. He would be a tall, vigorous man, burnt brown by the sun, and he would point to his fields and flocks, "I have so many sheep and goats, so many oxen for the plough, so many mules and horses, so much grain unharvested, so much in store. Give me protection, that I may live without fear of my kaid, and half of all I own shall be yours." Then I had to explain through Salam that I had no power to help him, that my Government would do no more than protect me. It was hard for the applicants to learn that they must go unaided. The harvest was newly gathered, it had survived rain and blight and locusts, and now they had to wait the arrival of their kaid or his khalifa, who would seize all they could not conceal,—hawk, locust, and blight in one.

At the village called after its patron saint, Sidi B'noor, a little deputation of tribesmen brought grievances for an airing. We sat in the scanty shade of the zowia wall. M'Barak, wise man, remained by the side of a little pool born of the winter rains; he had tethered his horse and was sleeping patiently in the shadow cast by this long-suffering animal. The headman, who had seen my sporting guns, introduced himself by sending a polite message to beg that none of the birds that fluttered or brooded by the shrine might be shot, for that they were all sacred. Needless perhaps to say that the idea of shooting at noonday in Southern Morocco was far enough from my thoughts, and I sent back an assurance that brought half a dozen of the village notables round us as soon as lunch was over. Strangely enough, they wanted protection—but it was sought on account of the Sultan's protected subjects. "The men who have protection between this place and Djedida," declared their spokesman, sorrowfully, "have no fear of Allah or His Prophet. They brawl in our markets and rob us of our goods. They insult our houses,[14] they are without shame, and because of their protection our lives have become very bitter."

"Have you been to your Basha?" I asked the headman.

"I went bearing a gift in my hand, O Highly Favoured," replied the headman, "and he answered me, 'Foolish farmer, shall I bring the Sultan to visit me by interfering with these rebels against Allah who have taken the protection from Nazarenes?' And then he cursed me and drove me forth from his presence. But if you will give protection to us also we will face these misbegotten ones, and there shall be none to come between us."



I could do no more than deliver messages of consolation to the poor tribesmen, who sat in a semicircle, patient in the quivering heat. The old story of goodwill and inability had to be told again, and I never saw men more dejected. At the moment of leave-taking, however, I remembered that we had some empty mineral-water bottles and a large collection of gunmaker's circulars, that had been used as padding for a case of cartridges. So I distributed the circulars and empty bottles among the protection hunters, and they received them with wonder and delight. When I turned to take a last look round, the pages that had pictures of guns were being passed reverently from hand to hand; to outward seeming the farmers had forgotten their trouble. Thus easily may kindnesses be wrought among the truly simple of this world.

The market of Sidi B'noor is famous for its sales of slaves and horses,[15] but I remember it best by its swarm of blue rock-pigeons and sparrow-hawks, that seemed to live side by side in the walls surrounding the saint's white tomb. For reasons best known to themselves they lived without quarrelling, perhaps because the saint was a man of peace. Surely a sparrow-hawk in our island would not build his nest and live in perfect amity with pigeons. But, as is well known, the influence of the saintly endures after the flesh of the saint has returned to the dust whence it came.

The difference between Dukala and R'hamna, two adjacent provinces, is very marked. All that the first enjoys the second lacks. We left the fertile lands for great stony plains, wind-swept, bare and dry. Skeletons of camels, mules, and donkeys told their story of past sufferings, and the water supply was as scanty as the herbage upon which the R'hamna flocks fare so poorly. In place of prosperous douars, set in orchards amid rich arable land, there were Government n'zalas at long intervals in the waste, with wattled huts, and lean, hungry tribesmen, whose poverty was as plain to see as their ribs. Neither Basha nor Kaid could well grow fat now in such a place, and yet there was a time when R'hamna was a thriving province after its kind. But it had a warlike people and fierce, to whom the temptation of plundering the caravans that made their way to the Southern capital was irresistible. So the Court Elevated by Allah, taking advantage of a brief interval of peace, turned its forces loose against R'hamna early in the last decade of the nineteenth century. From end to end of its plains the powder "spoke," and the burning douars lighted the roads that their owners had plundered so often. Neither old nor young were spared, and great basketsful of human heads were sent to Red Marrakesh, to be spiked upon the wall by the J'maa Effina. When the desolation was complete from end to end of the province, the Shareefian troops were withdrawn, the few remaining folk of R'hamna were sent north and south to other provinces, the n'zalas were established in place of the forgotten douars, and the Elevated Court knew that there would be no more complaints. That was Mulai el Hassan's method of ruling—may Allah have pardoned him—and his grand wazeer's after him. It is perhaps the only method that is truly understood by the people in Morocco. R'hamna reminded me of the wildest and bleakest parts of Palestine, and when the Maalem said solemnly it was tenanted by djinoon since the insurrection, I felt he must certainly be right.

One evening we met an interesting procession. An old farmer was making his way from the jurisdiction of the local kaid. His "house" consisted of two wives and three children. A camel, whose sneering contempt for mankind was very noticeable, shuffled cumbrously beneath a very heavy load of mattresses, looms, rugs, copper kettles, sacks of corn, and other impedimenta. The wives, veiled to the eyes, rode on mules, each carrying a young child; the third child, a boy, walked by his father's side. The barley harvest had not been good in their part of the country, so after selling what he could, the old man had packed his goods on to the camel's back and was flying from the tax-gatherer. To be sure, he might meet robbers on the way to the province of M'touga, which was his destination, but they would do no more than the kaid of his own district; they might even do less. He had been many days upon the road, and was quaintly hopeful. I could not help thinking of prosperous men one meets at home, who declare, in the intervals of a costly dinner, that the Income Tax is an imposition that justifies the strongest protest, even to the point of repudiating the Government that puts it up by twopence in the pound. Had anybody been able to assure this old wanderer that his kaid or khalifa would be content with half the produce of his land, how cheerfully would he have returned to his native douar, how readily he would have—devised plans to avoid payment. A little later the track would be trodden by other families, moving, like the true Bedouins, in search of fresh pasture. It is the habit of the country to leave land to lie fallow when it has yielded a few crops.

There were days when the mirage did for the plain the work that man had neglected. It set great cities on the waste land as though for our sole benefit. I saw walls and battlements, stately mosques, cool gardens, and rivers where caravans of camels halted for rest and water. Several times we were deceived and hurried on, only to find that the wonder city, like the ignis fatuus of our own marshlands, receded as we approached and finally melted away altogether. Then the Maalem, after taking refuge with Allah from Satan the Stoned, who set false cities before the eyes of tired travellers, would revile the mules and horses for needing a mirage to urge them on the way; he would insult the fair fame of their mothers and swear that their sires were such beasts as no Believer would bestride. It is a fact that when the Maalem lashed our animals with his tongue they made haste to improve their pace, if only for a few minutes, and Salam, listening with an expression of some concern at the sad family history of the beasts—he had a stinging tongue for oaths himself—assured me that their sense of shame hurried them on. Certainly no sense of shame, or duty, or even compassion, ever moved the Maalem. By night he would repair to the kitchen tent and smoke kief or eat haschisch, but the troubles of preparing beds and supper did not worry him.



"Until the feast is prepared, why summon the guest," he said on a night when the worthy M'Barak, opening his lips for once, remonstrated with him. That evening the feast consisted of some soup made from meat tablets, and two chickens purchased for elevenpence the pair, of a market woman we met on the road. Yet if it was not the feast the Maalem's fancy painted it, our long hours in the open air had served to make it more pleasant than many a more elaborate meal.

We rode one morning through the valley of the Little Hills, once a place of unrest notorious by reason of several murders committed there, and deserted now by everything save a few birds of prey. There were gloomy rocks on all sides, the dry bed of a forgotten river offered us an uncomfortable and often perilous path, and we passed several cairns of small stones. The Maalem left his mule in order to pick up stones and add one to each cairn, and as he did so he cursed Satan with great fluency.[16]

It was a great relief to leave the Little Hills and emerge on to the plains of Hillreeli beyond. We had not far to go then before the view opened out, the haze in the far distance took faint shape of a city surrounded by a forest of palms on the western side, a great town with the minarets of many mosques rising from it. At this first view of Red Marrakesh, Salam, the Maalem, and M'Barak extolled Allah, who had renewed to them the sight of Yusuf ibn Tachfin's thousand-year-old city. Then they praised Sidi bel Abbas, the city's patron saint, who by reason of his love for righteous deeds stood on one leg for forty years, praying diligently all the time.

We each and all rendered praise and thanks after our separate fashions, and for me, I lit my last cigarette, careless of the future and well pleased.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] As the gnat settles he cries, "Habibi," i.e. "O my beloved." His, one fears, is but a carnal affection.

[14] I.e. Wives and children, to whom no Moor refers by name.

[15] It is said to be the largest market in the Sultan's dominions. As many as two thousand camels have been counted at one of the weekly gatherings here.

[16] The cairns are met frequently in Morocco. Some mark the place from which the traveller may obtain his first view of a near city; others are raised to show where a murder was committed. The cairns in the Little Hills are of the former kind.



IN RED MARRAKESH



CHAPTER V

IN RED MARRAKESH

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai, Whose portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp Abode his destined hour and went his way.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

There are certain cities that cannot be approached for the first time by any sympathetic traveller without a sense of solemnity and reverence that is not far removed from awe. Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Damascus, and Jerusalem may be cited as examples; each in its turn has filled me with great wonder and deep joy. But all of these are to be reached nowadays by the railway, that great modern purge of sensibility. Even Jerusalem is not exempt. A single line stretches from Jaffa by the sea to the very gates of the Holy City, playing hide-and-seek among the mountains of Judaea by the way, because the Turk was too poor to tunnel a direct path.

In Morocco, on the other hand, the railway is still unknown. He who seeks any of the country's inland cities must take horse or mule, camel or donkey, or, as a last resource, be content with a staff to aid him, and walk. Whether he fare to Fez, the city of Mulai Idrees, in which, an old writer assures us, "all the beauties of the earth are united"; or to Mequinez, where great Mulai Ismail kept a stream of human blood flowing constantly from his palace that all might know he ruled; or to Red Marrakesh, which Yusuf ibn Tachfin built nine hundred years ago,—his own exertion must convoy him. There must be days and nights of scant fare and small comfort, with all those hundred and one happenings of the road that make for pleasant memories. So far as I have been able to gather in the nine years that have passed since I first visited Morocco, one road is like another road, unless you have the Moghrebbin Arabic at your command and can go off the beaten track in Moorish dress. Walter Harris, the resourceful traveller and Times correspondent, did this when he sought the oases of Tafilalt, so also, in his fashion, did R.B. Cunninghame Graham when he tried in vain to reach Tarudant, and set out the record of his failure in one of the most fascinating travel books published since Eothen.[17]

For the rank and file of us the Government roads and the harmless necessary soldier must suffice, until the Gordian knot of Morocco's future has been untied or cut. Then perhaps, as a result of French pacific penetration, flying railway trains loaded with tourists, guide-book in hand and camera at the ready, will pierce the secret places of the land, and men will speak of "doing" Morocco, as they "do" other countries in their rush across the world, seeing all the stereotyped sights and appreciating none. For the present, by Allah's grace, matters are quite otherwise.

Marrakesh unfolded its beauties to us slowly and one by one as we pushed horses and mules into a canter over the level plains of Hillreeli. Forests of date-palm took definite shape; certain mosques, those of Sidi ben Yusuf and Bab Dukala, stood out clearly before us without the aid of glasses, but the Library mosque dominated the landscape by reason of the Kutubia tower by its side. The Atlas Mountains came out of the clouds and revealed the snows that would soon melt and set every southern river aflood, and then the town began to show limits to the east and west where, at first, there was nothing but haze. One or two caravans passed us, northward bound, their leaders hoping against hope that the Pretender, the "dog-descended," as a Susi trader called him, would not stand between them and the Sultan's camp, where the profits of the journey lay. By this time we could see the old grey wall of Marrakesh more plainly, with towers here and there, ruinous as the wall itself, and storks' nests on the battlements, their red-legged inhabitants fulfilling the duty of sentries. To the right, beyond the town, the great rock of Djebel Geelez suggested infinite possibilities in days to come, when some conqueror armed with modern weapons and a pacific mission should wish to bombard the walls in the sacred cause of civilisation. Then the view was lost in the date-palm forest, through which tiny tributaries of the Tensift run babbling over the red earth, while the kingfisher or dragon-fly, "a ray of living light," flashes over the shallow water, and young storks take their first lessons in the art of looking after themselves.

When a Moor has amassed wealth he praises God, builds a palace, and plants a garden; or, is suspected, accused—despotic authority is not particular—and cast into prison! In and round Marrakesh many Moors have gained riches and some have held them. The gardens stretch for miles. There are the far-spreading Augdal plantations of the Sultans of Morocco, in part public and elsewhere so private that to intrude would be to court death. The name signifies "the Maze," and they are said to justify it. In the outer or public grounds of this vast pleasaunce the fruit is sold by auction to the merchants of the city in late spring, when blossoming time is over, and, after the sale, buyers must watch and guard the trees until harvest brings them their reward.



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.



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 Caesar's Commentaries, 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.



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.



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 Bartimaeus 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, called floos, 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 mind A thought came streaming like a blazing ship Upon 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.



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 "floos of 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 the Thousand Nights and a Night including the uncle of Aladdin, are from the Moghreb.



ROUND ABOUT MARRAKESH



CHAPTER VI

ROUND ABOUT MARRAKESH

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

—Raod 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.



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.



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.



"Then the Father of the Faithful, the Ever Victorious," continued the True Believer, "decreed that the tolba should have a festival. And every year they meet in Marrakesh and Fez, and choose a talib who is to rule over them. The post is put up to auction; he who bids highest is Sultan for a week. He rides abroad on a fine horse or mule, under a M'dhal, as though he were indeed My Lord Abd-el-Aziz himself. Black slaves on either side brush away the flies with their white clothes, soldiers await to do his bidding, he is permitted to make a request to the true Sultan, and our Master has open ear and full hand for the tolba, who kept the Moghreb from the Unbelievers, the inheritors of the Fire, against whom Sidna Mohammed has turned his face."

I arrived in Marrakesh just too late to witness the reign of the talib, but I heard that the successful candidate had paid thirty-two dollars for the post—a trifle less than five pounds in our money, at the rate of exchange then current. This money had been divided among the tolba. The governor of Marrakesh had given the lucky king one hundred dollars in cash, thirty sheep, twenty-five cones of sugar, forty jars of butter, and several sacks of flour. This procedure is peculiar to the Southern capital. In Fez the tolba kings collect taxes in person from every householder.

The talib's petition to the Sultan had been framed on a very liberal scale. He asked for a home in Saffi, exemption from taxes, and a place in the custom-house. The Sultan had not responded to the petition when I left the city; he was closely beleaguered in Fez, and Bu Hamara was occupying Taza, the ancient city where the deed of the tolba had first instituted the quaint custom. My informant said there was little doubt but that his Shareefian majesty would grant all the requests, so the talib's investment of thirty-two dollars must be deemed highly profitable. At the same time I cannot find the story I was told confirmed by Moorish historians. No record to which I have had access tells of a Jewish king of Taza, though there was a Hebrew in high favour there in the time of Rasheed II. The details of the story told me are, as the American scribe said, probably attributable to Mr. Benjamin Trovato.

When the attractions of Kaisariyah palled, the markets beyond the walls never failed to revive interest in the city's life. The Thursday market outside the Bab al Khamees brought together a very wonderful crowd of men and goods. All the city's trade in horses, camels, and cattle was done here. The caravan traders bought or hired their camels, and there were fine animals for sale with one fore and one hind leg hobbled, to keep them from straying. The camels were always the most interesting beasts on view. For the most part their attendants were Saharowi, who could control them seemingly by voice or movement of the hand; but a camel needs no little care, particularly at feeding time, when he is apt to turn spiteful if precedence be given to an animal he does not like. They are marvellously touchy and fastidious creatures—quite childlike in many of their peculiarities.



The desert caravan trade is not what it was since the French occupied Timbuctoo and closed the oases of Tuat; but I saw some caravans arrive from the interior—one of them from the sandy region where Mons. Lebaudy has set up his kingdom. How happy men and beasts seemed to be. I never saw camels looking so contented: the customary sneer had passed from their faces—or accumulated dust had blotted it out. On the day when the market is held in the open place beyond the Bab al Khamees, there is another big gathering within the city walls by the Jamaa Effina. Here acrobats and snake-charmers and story-tellers ply their trade, and never fail to find an audience. The acrobats come from Tarudant and another large city of the Sus that is not marked in the British War Office Map of Morocco dated 1889! Occasionally one of these clever tumblers finds his way to London, and is seen at the music halls there.

I remember calling on one Hadj Abdullah when I was in the North, and to my surprise he told me he spoke English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Moghrebbin Arabic, and Shilha. "I know London well," he said; "I have an engagement to bring my troupe of acrobats to the Canterbury and the Oxford. I am a member of a Masonic Lodge in Camberwell." Commonplace enough all this, but when you have ridden out of town to a little Moorish house on the hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, and are drinking green tea flavoured with mint, on a diwan that must be used with crossed legs, you hardly expect the discussion to be turned to London music-halls.

Snake-charmers make a strong appeal to the untutored Moorish crowd. Black cobras and spotted leffa snakes from the Sus are used for the performance. When the charmer allows the snakes to dart at him or even to bite, the onlookers put their hands to their foreheads and praise Sidi ben Aissa, a saint who lived in Mequinez when Mulai Ismail ruled, a pious magician whose power stands even to-day between snake-charmers and sudden death. The musician who accompanies the chief performer, and collects the floos offered by spectators, works his companion into a condition of frenzy until he does not seem to feel the teeth of the snakes; but as people who should be well informed declare that the poison bags are always removed before the snakes are used for exhibition, it is hard for the mere Unbeliever to render to Sidi ben Aissa the exact amount of credit that may be due to him.



The story-teller, whose legends are to be found in the "Thousand Nights and a Night," is generally a merry rogue with ready wit. His tales are told with a wealth of detail that would place them upon the index expurgatorius of the Western world, but men, women, and children crowd round to hear them, and if his tale lacks the ingredients most desired they do not hesitate to tell him so, whereupon he will respond at once to his critics, and add love or war in accordance with their instructions. One has heard of something like this in the serial market at home. His reward is scanty, like that of his fellow-workers, the acrobat and the snake charmer, but he has quite a professional manner, and stops at the most exciting points in his narrative for his companion to make a tour of the circle to collect fees. The quality of the adventures he retails is settled always by the price paid for them.

It is a strange sight, and unpleasant to the European, who believes that his morality, like his faith, is the only genuine article, to see young girls with antimony on their eyelids and henna on their nails, listening to stories that only the late Sir Richard Burton dared to render literally into the English tongue. While these children are young and impressionable they are allowed to run wild, but from the day when they become self-conscious they are strictly secluded.

Throughout Marrakesh one notes a spirit of industry. If a man has work, he seems to be happy and well content. Most traders are very courteous and gentle in their dealings, and many have a sense of humour that cannot fail to please. While in the city I ordered one or two lamps from a workman who had a little shop in the Madinah. He asked for three days, and on the evening of the third day I went to fetch them, in company with Salam. The workman, who had made them himself, drew the lamps one by one from a dark corner, and Salam, who has a hawk's eye, noticed that the glass of one was slightly cracked.

"Have a care, O Father of Lamps," he said; "the Englishman will not take a cracked glass."

"What is this," cried the Lamps' Father in great anger, "who sells cracked lamps? If there is a flaw in one of mine, ask me for two dollars."

Salam held the lamp with cracked glass up against the light. "Two dollars," he said briefly. The tradesman's face fell. He put his tongue out and smote it with his open hand.

"Ah," he said mournfully, when he had admonished the unruly member, "who can set a curb upon the tongue?"[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Mulai Rashed II.

[25] The royal umbrella.

[26] Cf. James iii. 8. But for a mere matter of dates, one would imagine that Luther detected the taint of Islam in James when he rejected his Epistle.



THE SLAVE MARKET AT MARRAKESH



CHAPTER VII

THE SLAVE MARKET AT MARRAKESH

As to your slaves, see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they are the servants of Allah, and are not to be tormented.

—Mohammed's last Address.

In the bazaars of the brass-workers and dealers in cotton goods, in the bazaars of the saddlers and of the leather-sellers,—in short, throughout the Kaisariyah, where the most important trade of Marrakesh is carried on,—the auctions of the afternoon are drawing to a close. The dilals have carried goods to and fro in a narrow path between two lines of True Believers, obtaining the best prices possible on behalf of the dignified merchants, who sit gravely in their boxlike shops beyond the reach of toil. No merchant seeks custom: he leaves the auctioneers to sell for him on commission, while he sits at ease, a stranger to elation or disappointment, in the knowledge that the success or failure of the day's market is decreed. Many articles have changed hands, but there is now a greater attraction for men with money outside the limited area of the Kaisariyah, and I think the traffic here passes before its time.

The hour of the sunset prayer is approaching. The wealthier members of the community leave many attractive bargains unpursued, and, heedless of the dilals' frenzied cries, set out for the Sok el Abeed. Wool market in the morning and afternoon, it becomes the slave market on three days of the week, in the two hours that precede the setting of the sun and the closing of the city gates; this is the rule that holds in Red Marrakesh.

I follow the business leaders through a very labyrinth of narrow, unpaved streets, roofed here and there with frayed and tattered palmetto-leaves that offer some protection, albeit a scanty one, against the blazing sun. At one of the corners where the beggars congregate and call for alms in the name of Mulai Abd el Kader Ijjilalli, I catch a glimpse of the great Kutubia tower, with pigeons circling round its glittering dome, and then the maze of streets, shutting out the view, claims me again. The path is by way of shops containing every sort of merchandise known to Moors, and of stalls of fruit and vegetables, grateful "as water-grass to herds in the June days." Past a turning in the crowded thoroughfare, where many Southern tribesmen are assembled, and heavily-laden camels compel pedestrians to go warily, the gate of the slave market looms portentous.

A crowd of penniless idlers, to whom admittance is denied, clamours outside the heavy door, while the city urchins fight for the privilege of holding the mules of wealthy Moors, who are arriving in large numbers in response to the report that the household of a great wazeer, recently disgraced, will be offered for sale. One sees portly men of the city wearing the blue cloth selhams that bespeak wealth, country Moors who boast less costly garments, but ride mules of easy pace and heavy price, and one or two high officials of the Dar el Makhzan. All classes of the wealthy are arriving rapidly, for the sale will open in a quarter of an hour.

The portals passed, unchallenged, the market stands revealed—an open space of bare, dry ground, hemmed round with tapia walls, dust-coloured, crumbling, ruinous. Something like an arcade stretches across the centre of the ground from one side to the other of the market. Roofless now and broken down, as is the outer wall itself, and the sheds, like cattle pens, that are built all round, it was doubtless an imposing structure in days of old. Behind the outer walls the town rises on every side. I see mules and donkeys feeding, apparently on the ramparts, but really in a fandak overlooking the market. The minaret of a mosque rises nobly beside the mules' feeding-ground, and beyond there is the white tomb of a saint, with swaying palm trees round it. Doubtless this zowia gives the Sok el Abeed a sanctity that no procedure within its walls can besmirch; and, to be sure, the laws of the saint's religion are not so much outraged here as in the daily life of many places more sanctified by popular opinion.

On the ground, by the side of the human cattle pens, the wealthy patrons of the market seat themselves at their ease, arrange their djellabas and selhams in leisurely fashion, and begin to chat, as though the place were the smoking-room of a club. Water-carriers—lean, half-naked men from the Sus—sprinkle the thirsty ground, that the tramp of slaves and auctioneers may not raise too much dust. Watching them as they go about their work, with the apathy born of custom and experience, I have a sudden reminder of the Spanish bull-ring, to which the slave market bears some remote resemblance. The gathering of spectators, the watering of the ground, the sense of excitement, all strengthen the impression. There are no bulls in the torils, but there are slaves in the pens. It may be that the bulls have the better time. Their sufferings in life are certainly brief, and their careless days are very long drawn out. But I would not give the impression that the spectators here are assembled for amusement, or that my view of some of their proceedings would be comprehensible to them. However I may feel, the other occupants of this place are here in the ordinary course of business, and are certainly animated by no such fierce passions as thrill through the air of a plaza de toros. I am in the East but of the West, and "never the twain shall meet."



Within their sheds the slaves are huddled together. They will not face the light until the market opens. I catch a glimpse of bright colouring now and again, as some woman or child moves in the dim recesses of the retreats, but there is no suggestion of the number or quality of the penned.

Two storks sail leisurely from their nest on the saint's tomb, and a little company of white ospreys passes over the burning market-place with such a wild, free flight, that the contrast between the birds and the human beings forces itself upon me. Now, however, there is no time for such thoughts; the crowd at the entrance parts to the right and left, to admit twelve grave men wearing white turbans and spotless djellabas. They are the dilals, in whose hands is the conduct of the sale.

Slowly and impressively these men advance in a line almost to the centre of the slave market, within two or three yards of the arcade, where the wealthy buyers sit expectant. Then the head auctioneer lifts up his voice, and prays, with downcast eyes and outspread hands. He recites the glory of Allah, the One, who made the heaven above and the earth beneath, the sea and all that is therein; his brethren and the buyers say Amen. He thanks Allah for his mercy to men in sending Mohammed the Prophet, who gave the world the True Belief, and he curses Shaitan, who wages war against Allah and his children. Then he calls upon Sidi bel Abbas, patron saint of Marrakesh, friend of buyers and sellers, who praised Allah so assiduously in days remote, and asks the saint to bless the market and all who buy and sell therein, granting them prosperity and length of days. And to these prayers, uttered with an intensity of devotion quite Mohammedan, all the listeners say Amen. Only to Unbelievers like myself,—to men who have never known, or knowing, have rejected Islam,—is there aught repellent in the approaching business; and Unbelievers may well pass unnoticed. In life the man who has the True Faith despises them; in death they become children of the Fire. Is it not so set down?

Throughout this strange ceremony of prayer I seem to see the bull-ring again, and in place of the dilals the cuadrillas of the Matadors coming out to salute, before the alguazils open the gates of the toril and the slaying begins. The dramatic intensity of either scene connects for me this slave market in Marrakesh with the plaza de toros in the shadow of the Giralda tower in Sevilla. Strange to remember now and here, that the man who built the Kutubia tower for this thousand-year-old-city of Yusuf ben Tachfin, gave the Giralda to Andalusia.

Prayers are over—the last Amen is said. The dilals separate, each one going to the pens he presides over, and calling upon their tenants to come forth. These selling men move with a dignity that is quite Eastern, and speak in calm and impressive tones. They lack the frenzied energy of their brethren who traffic in the bazaars.



Obedient to the summons, the slaves face the light, the sheds yield up their freight, and there are a few noisy moments, bewildering to the novice, in which the auctioneers place their goods in line, rearrange dresses, give children to the charge of adults, sort out men and women according to their age and value, and prepare for the promenade. The slaves will march round and round the circle of the buyers, led by the auctioneers, who will proclaim the latest bid and hand over any one of their charges to an intending purchaser, that he may make his examination before raising the price. In the procession now forming for the first parade, five, if not six, of the seven ages set out by the melancholy Jaques are represented. There are men and women who can no longer walk upright, however the dilal may insist; there are others of middle age, with years of active service before them; there are young men full of vigour and youth, fit for the fields, and young women, moving for once unveiled yet unrebuked, who will pass at once to the hareem. And there are children of every age, from babies who will be sold with their mothers to girls and boys upon the threshold of manhood and womanhood. All are dressed in bright colours and displayed to the best advantage, that the hearts of bidders may be moved and their purses opened widely.

"It will be a fine sale," says my neighbour, a handsome middle-aged Moor from one of the Atlas villages, who had chosen his place before I reached the market. "There must be well nigh forty slaves, and this is good, seeing that the Elevated Court is at Fez. It is because our Master—Allah send him more victories!—has been pleased to 'visit' Sidi Abdeslam, and send him to the prison of Mequinez. All the wealth he has extorted has been taken away from him by our Master, and he will see no more light. Twenty or more of these women are of his house."

Now each dilal has his people sorted out, and the procession begins. Followed by their bargains the dilals march round and round the market, and I understand why the dust was laid before the procession commenced.

Most of the slaves are absolutely free from emotion of any sort: they move round as stolidly as the blind-folded horses that work the water-wheels in gardens beyond the town, or the corn mills within its gates. I think the sensitive ones—and there are a few—must come from the household of the unfortunate Sidi Abdeslam, who was reputed to be a good master. Small wonder if the younger women shrink, and if the black visage seems to take on a tint of ashen grey, when a buyer, whose face is an open defiance of the ten commandments, calls upon the dilal to halt, and, picking one out as though she had been one of a flock of sheep, handles her as a butcher would, examining teeth and muscles, and questioning her and the dilal very closely about past history and present health. And yet the European observer must beware lest he read into incidents of this kind something that neither buyer nor seller would recognise. Novelty may create an emotion that facts and custom cannot justify.



"Ah, Tsamanni," says my gossip from the Atlas to the big dilal who led the prayers, and is in special charge of the children for sale, "I will speak to this one," and Tsamanni pushes a tiny little girl into his arms. The child kisses the speaker's hand. Not at all unkindly the Moor takes his critical survey, and Tsamanni enlarges upon her merits.

"She does not come from the town at all," he says glibly, "but from Timbuctoo. It is more difficult than ever to get children from there. The accursed Nazarenes have taken the town, and the slave market droops. But this one is desirable: she understands needlework, she will be a companion for your house, and thirty-five dollars is the last price bid."

"One more dollar, Tsamanni. She is not ill-favoured, but she is poor and thin. Nevertheless say one dollar more," says the Moor.

"The praise to Allah, who made the world," says the dilal piously, and hurries round the ring, saying that the price of the child is now thirty-six dollars, and calling upon the buyers to go higher.

I learn that the dilal's commission is two and a half per cent on the purchase price, and there is a Government tax of five per cent. Slaves are sold under a warranty, and are returned if they are not properly described by the auctioneer. Bids must not be advanced by less than a Moorish dollar (about three shillings) at a time, and when a sale is concluded a deposit must be paid at once, and the balance on or shortly after the following day. Thin slaves will not fetch as much money as fat ones, for corpulence is regarded as the outward and visible sign of health as well as wealth by the Moor.

"I have a son of my house," says the Moor from the Atlas, with a burst of confidence quite surprising. "He is my only one, and must have a playfellow, so I am here to buy. In these days it is not easy to get what one wants. Everywhere the French. The caravans come no longer from Tuat—because of the French. From Timbuctoo it is the same thing. Surely Allah will burn these people in a fire of more than ordinary heat—a furnace that shall never cool. Ah, listen to the prices," The little girl's market-value has gone to forty-four dollars—say seven pounds ten shillings in English money at the current rate of exchange. It has risen two dollars at a time, and Tsamanni cannot quite cover his satisfaction. One girl, aged fourteen, has been sold for no less than ninety dollars after spirited bidding from two country kaids; another, two years older, has gone for seventy-six.

"There is no moderation in all this," says the Atlas Moor, angrily. "But prices will rise until our Lord the Sultan ceases to listen to the Nazarenes, and purges the land. Because of their Bashadors we can no longer have the markets at the towns on the coasts. If we do have one there, it must be held secretly, and a slave must be carried in the darkness from house to house. This is shameful for an unconquered people."

I am only faintly conscious of my companion's talk and action, as he bids for child after child, never going beyond forty dollars. Interest centres in the diminishing crowd of slaves who still follow the dilals round the market in monotonous procession.