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Dost thou think of thy Marco, who is so near to thee?" Poor Marco! If he could have seen in what a case his mother was at that moment, he would have made a superhuman effort to proceed on his way, and to reach her a few hours earlier. She was ill in bed, in a ground-floor room of a lordly mansion, where dwelt the entire Mequinez family.

"Five days later a party of soldiers came to our house. To our utter astonishment and dismay, without a word of explanation, they put chains on our necks and wrists, and placing us on mules, bore us away. Remonstrance and resistance were equally vain. We were in Mequinez.

Thus, possessing little and desiring nothing, having neither houses nor lands, and only considering themselves secure from their rulers in having no money, this company of battered human wrecks, life-broken and crime-logged and stranded, passed with their leader from place to place of the waste country about Mequinez.

The old Venetian traveller Marco Polo states them well: he speaks, indeed, of the Eastern or Tartar deserts; the steppes which stretch from European Russia to the footsteps of the Chinese throne; but exactly the same creed prevails amongst the Arabs, from Bagdad to Suez and Cairo from Rosetta to Tunis Tunis to Timbuctoo or Mequinez.

In many places on the coast, as in the province of Oran and particularly in the north of Morocco, everybody goes and bathes in the sea at midsummer; and in many towns of the interior, such as Fez, Mequinez, and especially Merrakech, people throw water over each other on this day; and where water is scarce, earth is used instead, according to the Mohammedan principle which permits ablutions to be performed with earth or sand when water cannot be spared for the purpose.

I will tell you about it. One more kiss. Go! Here I am, doctor." Marco was taken away. The master, mistress, and women retired in haste; the surgeon and his assistant remained behind, and closed the door. Signor Mequinez attempted to lead Marco to a distant room, but it was impossible; he seemed rooted to the pavement. "What is it?" he asked. "What is the matter with my mother?

"I will go," said Mohammed; "and beware what you do while I am gone." "Do you threaten me?" cried Ben Aboo. "Will you go to the Sultan? Will you appeal to Abd er-Rahman?" "No, Ben Aboo; but to God." So saying, Mohammed of Mequinez strode out of the place, for no man hindered him.

It is not enough that the newspapers have said it. We shall have to have it printed on the corner of the street, that Signor Mequinez has gone to live at Tucuman!" The boy gave way to a gesture of despair. Then he gave way to an outburst of passion. "So there is a curse upon me! I am doomed to die on the road, without having found my mother! I shall go mad! I shall kill myself!

"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.

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.