cautiously, as though this room in a Moorish house were a stage and the
shrouded visitors were the chorus entering mysteriously from unexpected
places. The old man's merriment was very real and hearty, so genuine, in
fact, that he did not notice how his women-folk were intruding until the
last note sounded. Then he turned round and the swathed figures
disappeared suddenly as ghosts at cockcrow.

Though it was clear that Sidi Boubikir seldom saw half the rooms through
which we hurried, the passion for building, that seizes all rich Moors,
held him fast. He was adding wing after wing to his vast premises, and
would doubtless order more furniture from London to fill the new rooms. No
Moor knows when it is time to call a halt and deem his house complete, and
so the country is full of palaces begun by men who fell from power or died
leaving the work unfinished. The Grand Wazeer Ba Ahmad left a palace
nearly as big as the Dar el Makhzan itself, and since he died the storks
that build upon the flat roofs have been its only occupants. So it is with
the gardens, whose many beauties he did not live to enjoy. I rode past
them one morning, noted all manner of fruit trees blossoming, heard birds
singing in their branches, and saw young storks fishing in the little
pools that the rains of winter had left. But there was not one gardener
there to tend the ground once so highly cultivated, and I was assured that
the terror of the wazeer's name kept even the hungry beggars from the
fruit in harvest time.

[Illustration: STREET IN MARRAKESH]

The home and its appointments duly exhibited, Sidi Boubikir led the way to
a diwan in a well-cushioned room that opened on to the garden. He clapped
his hands and a small regiment of women-servants, black and for the most
part uncomely, arrived to prepare dinner. One brought a ewer, another a
basin, a third a towel, and water was poured out over our hands. Then a
large earthenware bowl encased in strong basketwork was brought by a
fourth servant, and a tray of flat loaves of fine wheat by a fifth, and we
broke bread and said the "Bismillah,"[41] which stands for grace. The bowl
was uncovered and revealed a savoury stew of chicken with sweet lemon and
olives, a very pleasing sight to all who appreciate Eastern cooking. The
use of knives being a crime against the Faith, and the use of forks and
spoons unknown, we plunged the fingers of the right hand into the bowl and
sought what pleased us best, usin