moving quietly by
my side without a word.

"O my masters, give charity; Allah helps helpers!" A blind beggar, sitting
by the gate, like Bartimaeus of old, thrust his withered hand before me.
Lightly though we had walked, his keen ear had known the difference in
sound between the native slipper and the European boot. It had roused him
from his slumbers, and he had calculated the distance so nicely that the
hand, suddenly shot out, was well within reach of mine. Salam, my almoner,
gave him a handful of the copper money, called _floos_, of which a score
may be worth a penny, and he sank back in his uneasy seat with voluble
thanks, not to us, but to Allah the One, who had been pleased to move us
to work his will. To me no thanks were due. I was no more than Allah's
unworthy medium, condemned to burn in fires seven times heated, for
unbelief.

From their home on the flat house-tops two storks rose suddenly, as though
to herald the dawn; the sun became visible above the city's time-worn
walls, and turned their colouring from violet to gold. We heard the guards
drawing the bars of the gate that is called Bab al Khamees, and knew that
the daily life of Marrakesh had begun. The great birds might have given
the signal that woke the town to activity.

Straightway men and beasts made their way through the narrow cobbled
lanes. Sneering camels, so bulked out by their burdens that a
foot-passenger must shrink against the wall to avoid a bad bruising;
well-fed horses, carrying some early-rising Moor of rank on the top of
seven saddle-cloths; half-starved donkeys, all sores and bruises; one
encountered every variety of Moorish traffic here, and the thoroughfare,
that had been deserted a moment before, was soon thronged. In addition to
the Moors and Susi traders, there were many slaves, black as coal, brought
in times past from the Soudan. From garden and orchard beyond the city the
fruit and flowers and vegetables were being carried into their respective
markets, and as they passed the air grew suddenly fragrant with a scent
that was almost intoxicating. The garbage that lay strewn over the cobbles
had no more power to offend, and the fresh scents added in some queer
fashion of their own to the unreality of the whole scene.

To avoid the crush we turned to another quarter of the city, noting that
the gates of the bazaars were opened, and that only the chains were left
across the entrance. But the tiny shops, mere overgrown packing-c