gate of his palace at the time appointed, two o'clock, we found
the old diplomat waiting to welcome us. He wore a fine linen djellaba of
dazzling whiteness, and carried a scarlet geranium in his hand. "You are
welcome," he said gravely, and led the way through a long corridor,
crying aloud as he went, "Make way, make way," for we were entering the
house itself, and it is not seemly that a Moorish woman, whether she be
wife or concubine, should look upon a stranger's face. Yet some few lights
of the hareem were not disposed to be extinguished altogether by
considerations of etiquette, and passed hurriedly along, as though bent
upon avoiding us and uncertain of our exact direction. The women-servants
satisfied their curiosity openly until my host suddenly commented upon the
questionable moral status of their mothers, and then they made haste to
disappear, only to return a moment later and peep round corners and
doorways, and giggle and scream--as if they had been Europeans of the same
class.

Sidi Boubikir passed from room to room of his great establishment and
showed some of its treasures. There were great piles of carpets and vast
quantities of furniture that must have looked out at one time in their
history upon the crowds that throng the Tottenham Court Road; I saw
chairs, sofas, bedsteads, clocks, and sideboards, all of English make.
Brought on camels through Dukala and R'hamna to Marrakesh, they were left
to fill up the countless rooms without care or arrangement, though their
owner's house must hold more than fifty women, without counting servants.
Probably when they were not quarrelling or dying their finger nails, or
painting their faces after a fashion that is far from pleasing to European
eyes, the ladies of the hareem passed their days lying on cushions,
playing the gimbri[40] or eating sweetmeats.

In one room on the ground-floor there was a great collection of
mechanical toys. Sidi Boubikir explained that the French Commercial
Attache had brought a large number to the Sultan's palace, and that my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz had rejected the ones before us. With the curious
childish simplicity that is found so often among the Moors of high
position, Boubikir insisted upon winding up the clock-work apparatus of
nearly all the toys. Then one doll danced, another played a drum, a third
went through gymnastic exercises, and the toy orchestra played the
Marseillaise, while from every adjacent room veiled figures stole out