The beauty of Moroccan palaces is made up of details of ornament and
refinements of sensuous delight too numerous to record, but to get an
idea of their general character it is worth while to cross the Court of
Cypresses at the Bahia and follow a series of low-studded passages that
turn on themselves till they reach the centre of the labyrinth. Here,
passing by a low padlocked door leading to a crypt, and known as the
"Door of the Vizier's Treasure-House," one comes on a painted portal
that opens into a still more secret sanctuary: The apartment of the
Grand Vizier's Favourite.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Felix, Marrakech_

Marrakech--the great court, Palace of the Bahia]

This lovely prison, from which all sight and sound of the outer world
are excluded, is built about an atrium paved with disks of turquoise and
black and white. Water trickles from a central _vasca_ of alabaster into
an hexagonal mosaic channel in the pavement. The walls, which are at
least twenty-five feet high, are roofed with painted beams resting on
panels of traceried stucco in which is set a clerestory of jewelled
glass. On each side of the atrium are long recessed rooms closed by
vermilion doors painted with gold arabesques and vases of spring
flowers, and into these shadowy inner rooms, spread with rugs and divans
and soft pillows, no light comes except when their doors are opened into
the atrium. In this fabulous place it was my good luck to be lodged
while I was at Marrakech.

In a climate where, after the winter snow has melted from the Atlas,
every breath of air for long months is a flame of fire, these enclosed
rooms in the middle of the palaces are the only places of refuge from
the heat. Even in October the temperature of the favourite's apartment
was deliciously reviving after a morning in the bazaars or the dusty
streets, and I never came back to its wet tiles and perpetual twilight
without the sense of plunging into a deep sea-pool.

From far off, through circuitous corridors, came the scent of
citron-blossom and jasmine, with sometimes a bird's song before dawn,
sometimes a flute's wail at sunset, and always the call of the muezzin
in the night, but no sunlight reached the apartment except in remote
rays through the clerestory, and no air except through one or two broken
panes.

Sometimes, lying on my divan, and looking out through the vermilion
doors, I used to surprise a pair of swallows dropping down from their