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Of all filthy quarters in the filthiest of cities, I think the Jewish Quarter in Marrakesh has a fair chance of ranking first, outside it, rubbish, a manure-heap eighty feet high, which no one troubles to remove; inside the walls, black mud, feet deep, streets which are sewers, collections of dead dogs, rotting vegetables, refuse of all sorts; amongst it all, a dirty people, callous beyond belief as regards sanitation, with sore heads, sore eyes, matted rags.
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.
The palm-trees wave above Marrakesh, turtle-backed mosques and tall towers rise among the gardens and gleam in the sun, but above and beyond every other feature of the far-away fantastic southern capital one watch-tower rises over everything and rears itself into the sky the Kutobea, built, according to tradition, by Fabir for the Sultan El Mansur.
Salam and M'Barak praised Sidi M'godol, whose zowia lay plainly to be seen below the Marrakesh gate; the Susi muleteers, the boy, and the slave renewed their Shilha songs, thinking doubtless of the store of dollars awaiting them; but I could not conquer my regrets, though I was properly obliged to Sidi M'godol for bringing me in safety to his long home.
When it became necessary for us to leave Marrakesh the young shareef went to the city's fandaks and inquired if they held muleteers bound for Mogador. We were fortunate in finding the men we sought without any delay.
French penetration in the far-off districts of no man's land beyond Tafilalt was well-known to these travelling market-folk; the Saharowi had spoken with the heads of a caravan that had come with slaves from Ghadames, by way of the Tuat, bound for Marrakesh. Resting by day and travelling by night, they had passed without challenge through the French lines.
We read in "Raôd el Kártás" that the mosque was finished and the tower commenced in 1197, during the reign of Mulai Yakûb el Mansûr, who commenced its sisters at Marrákesh and Rabat in the same year. One architect is recorded to have designed all three indeed, they have little uncommon in their design, and have been once almost alike.
But it is not by its architecture that Marrakesh stands and falls; rather by a personality all its own by its many ruined walls, by its deserted streets, by the hot pulse of life throbbing imperiously through its arteries crowded to suffocation with humanity, by its flaring African sunlight, by the figures which can never be other than picturesque, by a thousand impressions which can never die.
He was able to send for proper ropes at an hour when we could have found no trader to supply them, and if we reached the city gate that looks out towards the south almost as soon as the camel caravan that had waited without all night, the accomplishment was due to my kind friend who, with Mr. Alan Lennox, had done so much to make the stay in Marrakesh happily memorable.
When they saw St. Paul's they told of the glories of the Karûeeïn mosque at Fez; with the towers of Westminster before them they sang the praises of the Kûtûbîya at Marrákesh. Whatever they saw had its match in Morocco. But at last, as a huge dray-horse passed along the highway with its heavy load, one grasped the other's arm convulsively, exclaiming, "M'bark Allah! Aoûd hadhá!" "Blessed be God!
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