therefore simulate
his horrid end. And this is the reason why most of the white caftans
simply rock and writhe, while the humble blue shirts drip with blood.

[Illustration: _From a photograph taken by Captain Henissart of the
French Army_

Moulay-Idriss--the market-place. Procession of the confraternity of the
Hamadchas]

The sun was setting when we came down from our terrace above the
market-place. To find a lodging for the night we had to press on to
Meknez, where we were awaited at the French military post; therefore we
were reluctantly obliged to refuse an invitation to take tea with the
Caid, whose high-perched house commands the whole white amphitheatre
of the town. It was disappointing to leave Moulay Idriss with the
Hamadchas howling their maddest, and so much besides to see; but as we
drove away under the long shadows of the olives we counted ourselves
lucky to have entered the sacred town, and luckier still to have been
there on the day of the dance which, till a year ago, no foreigner had
been allowed to see.

A fine French road runs from Moulay Idriss to Meknez, and we flew on
through the dusk between wooded hills and open stretches on which the
fires of nomad camps put orange splashes in the darkness. Then the moon
rose, and by its light we saw a widening valley, and gardens and
orchards that stretched up to a great walled city outlined against the
stars.

III

MEKNEZ

All that evening, from the garden of the Military Subdivision on the
opposite height, we sat and looked across at the dark tree-clumps and
moonlit walls of Meknez, and listened to its fantastic history.

Meknez was built by the Sultan Moulay-Ismael, around the nucleus of a
small town of which the site happened to please him, at the very moment
when Louis XIV was creating Versailles. The coincidence of two
contemporary autocrats calling cities out of the wilderness has caused
persons with a taste for analogy to describe Meknez as the Versailles of
Morocco: an epithet which is about as instructive as it would be to call
Phidias the Benvenuto Cellini of Greece.

There is, however, a pretext for the comparison in the fact that the two
sovereigns took a lively interest in each other's affairs. Moulay-Ismael
sent several embassies to treat with Louis XIV on the eternal question
of piracy and the ransom of Christian captives, and the two rulers were
continually exchanging gifts and compliments.

The governor of Tetouan, who was s