women's quarters are drawn. The only harem in which we
were allowed an interpreter was that of the Sultan himself, in the
private harems of Fez and Rabat a French-speaking relative transmitted
(or professed to transmit) our remarks; in Marrakech, the great nobleman
and dignitary who kindly invited me to visit his household was deaf to
our hint that the presence of a lady from one of the French government
schools might facilitate our intercourse.

When we drove up to his palace, one of the stateliest in Marrakech, the
street was thronged with clansmen and clients. Dignified merchants in
white muslin, whose grooms held white mules saddled with rose-coloured
velvet, warriors from the Atlas wearing the corkscrew ringlets which are
a sign of military prowess, Jewish traders in black gabardines,
leather-gaitered peasant-women with chickens and cheese, and beggars
rolling their blind eyes or exposing their fly-plastered sores, were
gathered in Oriental promiscuity about the great man's door; while under
the archway stood a group of youths and warlike-looking older men who
were evidently of his own clan.

The Caid's chamberlain, a middle-aged man of dignified appearance,
advanced to meet us between bowing clients and tradesmen. He led us
through cool passages lined with the intricate mosaic-work of Fez, past
beggars who sat on stone benches whining out their blessings, and pale
Fazi craftsmen laying a floor of delicate tiles. The Caid is a lover of
old Arab architecture. His splendid house, which is not yet finished,
has been planned and decorated on the lines of the old Imperial palaces,
and when a few years of sun and rain and Oriental neglect have worked
their way on its cedar-wood and gilding and ivory stucco it will have
the same faded loveliness as the fairy palaces of Fez.

In a garden where fountains splashed and roses climbed among cypresses,
the Caid himself awaited us. This great fighter and loyal friend of
France is a magnificent eagle-beaked man, brown, lean and sinewy, with
vigilant eyes looking out under his carefully draped muslin turban, and
negroid lips half-hidden by a close black beard.

Tea was prepared in the familiar setting; a long arcaded room with
painted ceiling and richly stuccoed walls. All around were ranged the
usual mattresses covered with striped ticking and piled with muslin
cushions. A bedstead of brass, imitating a Louis XVI cane bed, and
adorned with brass garlands and bows, throned on t