bazaars of the brass-workers and dealers in cotton goods, in the
bazaars of the saddlers and of the leather-sellers,--in short, throughout
the Kaisariyah, where the most important trade of Marrakesh is carried
on,--the auctions of the afternoon are drawing to a close. The dilals have
carried goods to and fro in a narrow path between two lines of True
Believers, obtaining the best prices possible on behalf of the dignified
merchants, who sit gravely in their boxlike shops beyond the reach of
toil. No merchant seeks custom: he leaves the auctioneers to sell for him
on commission, while he sits at ease, a stranger to elation or
disappointment, in the knowledge that the success or failure of the day's
market is decreed. Many articles have changed hands, but there is now a
greater attraction for men with money outside the limited area of the
Kaisariyah, and I think the traffic here passes before its time.

The hour of the sunset prayer is approaching. The wealthier members of the
community leave many attractive bargains unpursued, and, heedless of the
dilals' frenzied cries, set out for the Sok el Abeed. Wool market in the
morning and afternoon, it becomes the slave market on three days of the
week, in the two hours that precede the setting of the sun and the closing
of the city gates; this is the rule that holds in Red Marrakesh.

I follow the business leaders through a very labyrinth of narrow, unpaved
streets, roofed here and there with frayed and tattered palmetto-leaves
that offer some protection, albeit a scanty one, against the blazing sun.
At one of the corners where the beggars congregate and call for alms in
the name of Mulai Abd el Kader Ijjilalli, I catch a glimpse of the great
Kutubia tower, with pigeons circling round its glittering dome, and then
the maze of streets, shutting out the view, claims me again. The path is
by way of shops containing every sort of merchandise known to Moors, and
of stalls of fruit and vegetables, grateful "as water-grass to herds in
the June days." Past a turning in the crowded thoroughfare, where many
Southern tribesmen are assembled, and heavily-laden camels compel
pedestrians to go warily, the gate of the slave market looms portentous.

A crowd of penniless idlers, to whom admittance is denied, clamours
outside the heavy door, while the city urchins fight for the privilege of
holding the mules of wealthy Moors, who are arriving in large numbers in
response to the report that the