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Volubilis seems to have had the extent and wealth of a great military outpost, such as Timgad in Algeria; but in the seventeenth century it was very nearly destroyed by Moulay-Ismaël, the Sultan of the Black Guard, who carried off its monuments piece-meal to build his new capital of Meknez, that Mequinez of contemporary travellers which was held to be one of the wonders of the age.
When they aroused him, he was at Cordova. Ah, what a deep breath he drew, and with what impetuosity he flew from the car! He inquired of one of the station employees where the house of the engineer Mequinez was situated; the latter mentioned the name of a church; it stood beside the church: the boy hastened away. It was night.
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.
Six months ago they had abandoned their houses and followed him They had passed from Mequinez to Rabat, from Rabat to Mazagan, from Mazagan to Mogador, from Mogador to Marrakesh, and finally from Marrakesh through the treacherous Beni Magild to Fez. At every step their numbers had increased but their substance had diminished, for only the destitute had joined them.
When Israel heard of what had been done he secretly rejoiced; but Ben Aboo was in a commotion of fear, and Katrina was fierce with anger, for the doctrine which Absalam had preached to his neighbours outside the walls was not his own doctrine merely, but that of a great man lately risen among the people, called Mohammed of Mequinez, nicknamed by his enemies Mohammed the Third.
Marco stared at him with wide-open eyes, and asked him hastily, turning pale as he did so, "Did you see the servant of Signor Mequinez the Italian?" "The Genoese? Yes; I saw her." Marco burst into a convulsive sob, which was half a laugh and half a sob. Then, with a burst of violent resolution: "Which way am I to go? quick, the road! I shall set out instantly; show me the way!"
Fez is the city of arts and learning, that is of what remains of the once famous and profound Moorish doctors of Spain. Mequinez is the strong place of the Empire, an emporium of arms and imperial Cretsures. Fez is the rival of Morocco. The two cities are the capitals of two kingdoms, never yet amalgamated.
Tessin and Major Shackleton looked suddenly towards Wyley in recognition of the accuracy of his guess. Scrope simply wiped the perspiration from his forehead and waited. "But how does that forgetfulness, shall we say? persuade you to the fear that you played the coward?" asked Wyley. "Well," replied Knightley, and his voice sank to a whisper, "I played the coward afterwards at Mequinez.
At the first it used to amuse me to wonder what happened after I opened the door and before I was captured outside Tangier; later it only puzzled me, and in the end it began to frighten me. You see, I could not tell; it was all a blank to me, as it is now; and a man overdriven well, he nurses sickly fancies. No need to say what mine were until the day I played the coward in Mequinez.
He then spoke of Mequinez, which, he said, was a Jennut, or Paradise, compared with which Gibraltar was a sty of hogs. So great, so universal is the love of country. I soon saw that both these people believed me to be of their own nation; indeed, the young one, who was much the most familiar, taxed me with being so, and spoke of the infamy of denying my own blood.
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