in these fugitive records of my last journey into the "Extreme West,"
I find it hard to turn from Marrakesh. Just as the city held me within its
gates until further sojourn was impossible, so its memories crowd upon me
now, and I recall with an interest I may scarcely hope to communicate the
varied and compelling appeals it made to me at every hour of the day. Yet
I believe, at least I hope, that most of the men and women who strive to
gather for themselves some picture of the world's unfamiliar aspects will
understand the fascination to which I refer, despite my failure to give it
fitting expression. Sevilla in Andalusia held me in the same way when I
went from Cadiz to spend a week-end there, and the three days became as
many weeks, and would have become as many months or years had I been my
own master--which to be sure we none of us are. The hand of the Moor is
clearly to be seen in Sevilla to-day, notably in the Alcazar and the
Giralda tower, fashioned by the builder of the Kutubia that stands like a
stately lighthouse in the Blad al Hamra.

So, with the fascination of the city for excuse, I lingered in Marrakesh
and went daily to the bazaars to make small purchases. The dealers were
patient, friendly folk, and found no trouble too much, so that there was
prospect of a sale at the end of it. Most of them had a collapsible set of
values for their wares, but the dealer who had the best share of my
Moorish or Spanish dollars was an old man in the bazaar of the
brass-workers, who used to say proudly, "Behold in me thy servant, Abd el
Kerim,[43] the man of one price."

The brass and copper workers had most of their metal brought to them from
the Sus country, and sold their goods by weight. Woe to the dealer
discovered with false scales. The gunsmiths, who seemed to do quite a big
trade in flint-lock guns, worked with their feet as well as their hands,
their dexterity being almost Japanese. Nearly every master had an
apprentice or two, and if there are idle apprentices in the southern
capital of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz, I was not fated to see one.

No phase of the city's life lacked fascination, nor was the interest
abated when life and death moved side by side. A Moorish funeral wound
slowly along the road in the path of a morning's ride. First came a crowd
of ragged fellows on foot singing the praises of Allah, who gives one
life to his servants here and an eternity of bliss in Paradise at the end
of their day's work. The