close by the lament of the
_rekka_ (a kind of long fife), accompanied by a wild thrum-thrum of
earthenware drums and a curious excited chanting of men's voices. I had
heard such a chant before, at the other end of North Africa, in
Kairouan, one of the other great Sanctuaries of Islam, where the sect of
the Aissaouas celebrate their sanguinary rites in the _Zaouia_[A] of
their confraternity. Yet it seemed incredible that if the Aissaouas of
Moulay Idriss were performing their ceremonies that day the chief of
police should be placidly leading us through the streets in the very
direction from which the chant was coming. The Moroccan, though he
has no desire to get into trouble with the Christian, prefers to be left
alone on feast-days, especially in such a stronghold of the faith as
Moulay Idriss.

[Footnote A: Sacred college.]

[Illustration: _From a photograph from the Service des Beaux-Arts au
Maroc_

Moulay-Idriss (9,000 inhabitants)]

But "Geschehen ist geschehen" is the sum of Oriental philosophy. For
centuries Moulay Idriss had held out fanatically on its holy steep;
then, suddenly, in 1916, its chiefs saw that the game was up, and
surrendered without a pretense of resistance. Now the whole thing was
over, the new conditions were accepted, and the chief of police assured
us that with the French uniform at our side we should be safe anywhere.

"The Aissaouas?" he explained. "No, this is another sect, the Hamadchas,
who are performing their ritual dance on the feast-day of their patron,
the _marabout_ Hamadch, whose tomb is in the Zerhoun. The feast is
celebrated publicly in the market-place of Moulay Idriss."

As he spoke we came out into the market-place, and understood why there
had been no crowd at the gate. All the population was in the square and
on the roofs that mount above it, tier by tier, against the wooded
hillside: Moulay Idriss had better to do that day than to gape at a few
tourists in dust-coats.

Short of Sfax, and the other coast cities of eastern Tunisia, there is
surely not another town in North Africa as white as Moulay Idriss. Some
are pale blue and pinky yellow, like the Kasbah of Tangier, or cream and
blue like Sale, but Tangier and Sale, for centuries continuously subject
to European influences, have probably borrowed their colors from Genoa
and the Italian Riviera. In the interior of the country, and especially
in Morocco, where the whole color-scheme is much soberer than in Algeria