heads in fire.' 'Tis an agreeable legend.

[Illustration: A WANDERING MINSTREL]

Market men, half naked and very lean, were coming in from Tamsloht and
Amsmiz, guiding their heavy-laden donkeys past the crumbling walls and the
steep valley that separates Elhara from the town. Some scores of lepers
had left their quarters, a few hiding terrible disfigurement under
great straw hats, others quite careless of their deplorable disease.
Beggars all, they were going on their daily journey to the shrine of Sidi
bel Abbas, patron of the destitute, to sit there beneath the zowia's ample
walls, hide their heads in their rags, and cry upon the passers to
remember them for the sake of the saint who had their welfare so much at
heart. And with the closing of the day they would be driven out of the
city, and back into walled Elhara, to such of the mud huts as they called
home. Long acquaintance with misery had made them careless of it. They
shuffled along as though they were going to work, but from my shaded
corner, where I could see without being seen, I noted no sign of converse
between them, and every face that could be studied was stamped with the
impress of unending misery.

The scene around us was exquisite. Far away one saw the snow-capped peaks
of the Atlas; hawks and swallows sailed to and from Elhara's walls; doves
were cooing in the orchards, bee-eaters flitted lightly amid the palms. I
found myself wondering if the lepers ever thought to contrast their lives
with their surroundings, and I trusted they did not. Some few, probably,
had not been lepers, but criminals, who preferred the horrid liberty of
Elhara to the chance of detection and the living death of the Hib Misbah.
Other beggars were not really lepers, but suffered from one or other of
the kindred diseases that waste Morocco. In Marrakesh the native doctors
are not on any terms with skilled diagnosis, and once a man ventures into
Elhara, he acquires a reputation for leprosy that serves his purpose. I
remember inquiring of a Moorish doctor the treatment of a certain native's
case. "Who shall arrest Allah's decree?" he began modestly. And he went on
to say that the best way to treat an open wound was to put powdered
sulphur upon it, and apply a light.[22] Horrible as this remedy seems, the
worthy doctor believed in it, and had sent many a True Believer
to--Paradise, I hope--by treating him on these lines. Meanwhile his
profound confidence in himself, together with