h turn of the labyrinth one may catch sight of its court of
fountains, or peep down the endless colonnades of which the Arabs say:
"The man who should try to count the columns of Kairouiyin would go
mad."

Marble floors, heavy whitewashed piers, prostrate figures in the
penumbra, rows of yellow slippers outside in the sunlight--out of such
glimpses one must reconstruct a vision of the long vistas of arches, the
blues and golds of the _mirhab_,[A] the lustre of bronze chandeliers,
and the ivory inlaying of the twelfth-century _minbar_[B] of ebony and
sandalwood.

[Footnote A: Niche in the sanctuary of mosques.]

[Footnote B: Movable pulpit.]

No Christian footstep has yet profaned Kairouiyin, but fairly definite
information as to its plan has been gleaned by students of Moroccan art.
The number of its "countless" columns has been counted, and it is known
that, to the right of the _mirhab_, carved cedar doors open into a
mortuary chapel called "the mosque of the dead"--and also that in this
chapel, on Fridays, old books and precious manuscripts are sold by
auction.

This odd association of uses recalls the fact that Kairouiyin is not
only a church but a library, the University of Fez as well as its
cathedral. The beautiful Medersas with which the Merinids adorned the
city are simply the lodging-houses of the students, the classes are all
held in the courts and galleries adjoining the mosque.

El Kairouiyin was originally an oratory built in the ninth century by
Fatmah, whose father had migrated from Kairouan to Fez. Later it was
enlarged, and its cupola was surmounted by the talismans which protect
sacred edifices against rats, scorpions and serpents, but in spite of
these precautions all animal life was not successfully exorcised from
it. In the twelfth century, when the great gate Ech Chemmain was
building, a well was discovered under its foundations. The mouth of the
well was obstructed by an immense tortoise, but when the workmen
attempted to take the tortoise out she said: "Burn me rather than take
me away from here." They respected her wishes and built her into the
foundations; and since then women who suffer from the back-ache have
only to come and sit on the bench above the well to be cured.

The actual mosque, or "praying-hall," is said to be formed of a
rectangle or double cube of 90 metres by 45, and this vast space is
equally divided by rows of horseshoe arches resting on whitewashed piers
on which th