if they are kinder and
cleaner and more honourable by reason of their intercourse with the
"tabibs" and "tabibas," the world gains and Morocco is well served. When
the Sultan was in difficulties towards the end of 1902, and the star of Bu
Hamara was in the ascendant, Sir Arthur Nicolson, our Minister in Tangier,
ordered all British subjects to leave the inland towns for the coast. As
soon as the news reached the Marrakshis, the houses of the missionaries
were besieged by eager crowds of Moors and Berbers, offering to defend the
well-beloved tabibs against all comers, and begging them not to go away.
Very reluctantly Mr. Nairn and his companions obeyed the orders sent from
Tangier, but, having seen their wives and children safely housed in
Djedida, they returned to their work.

[Illustration: FRUIT MARKET, MARRAKESH]

The Elhara or leper quarter is just outside one of the city gates, and
after some effort of will, I conquered my repugnance and rode within its
gate. The place proved to be a collection of poverty-stricken hovels built
in a circle, of the native tapia, which was crumbling to pieces through
age and neglect. Most of the inhabitants were begging in the city, where
they are at liberty to remain until the gates are closed, but there were a
few left at home, and I had some difficulty in restraining the keeper
of Elhara, who wished to parade the unfortunate creatures before me that I
might not miss any detail of their sufferings. Leper women peeped out from
corners, as Boubikir's "house" had done; little leper children played
merrily enough on the dry sandy ground, a few donkeys, covered with scars
and half starved, stood in the scanty shade. In a deep cleft below the
outer wall women and girls, very scantily clad, were washing clothes in a
pool that is reserved apparently for the use of the stricken village. I
was glad to leave the place behind me, after giving the unctuous keeper a
gift for the sufferers that doubtless never reached them. They tell me
that no sustained attempt is made to deal medically with the disease,
though many nasty concoctions are taken by a few True Believers, whose
faith, I fear, has not made them whole.[46]

When it became necessary for us to leave Marrakesh the young shareef went
to the city's fandaks and inquired if they held muleteers bound for
Mogador. The Maalem had taken his team home along the northern road, our
path lay to the south, through the province of the Son of Lions (Ou