ed
with the place.

Only one human being faced the glare of the light and trod fearlessly
through the mire that lay eight or ten inches deep on the ground, and he
was a madman, well-nigh as tattered and torn as the one I had angered in
the Kaisariyah on the morning after my arrival in the city. This man's
madness took a milder turn. He went from one donkey to another, whispering
in its ear, a message of consolation I hope and believe, though I had no
means of finding out. When I entered the fandak he came running up to me
in a style suggestive of the gambols of a playful dog, and I was
exceedingly annoyed by a thought that he might not know any difference
between me and his other friends. There was no need to be uneasy, for he
drew himself up to his full height, made a hissing noise in his throat,
and spat fiercely at my shadow. Then he returned to the stricken donkeys,
and the keeper of the fandak, coming out to welcome me, saw his more
worthy visitor. Turning from me with "Marhababik" ("You are welcome") just
off his lips, he ran forward and kissed the hem of the madman's djellaba.

A madman is very often an object of veneration in Morocco, for his brain
is in divine keeping, while his body is on the earth. And yet the Moor is
not altogether logical in his attitude to the "afflicted of Allah." While
so much liberty is granted to the majority of the insane that feigned
madness is quite common among criminals in the country, less fortunate men
who have really become mentally afflicted, but are not recognised as
insane, are kept chained to the walls of the Marstan--half hospital, half
prison--that is attached to the most great mosques. I have been assured
that they suffer considerably at the hands of most gaoler-doctors, whose
medicine is almost invariably the stick, but I have not been able to
verify the story, which is quite opposed to Moorish tradition. The mad
visitor to the fandak did not disturb the conversation with the keeper and
the Susi muleteers, but he turned the head of a donkey in our direction
and talked eagerly to the poor animal, pointing at me with outstretched
finger the while. The keeper of the fandak, kind man, made uneasy by this
demonstration, signed to me quietly to stretch out my hand, with palm
open, and directed to the spot where the madman stood, for only in that
way could I hope to avert the evil eye.

The chief muleteer was a thin and wiry little fellow, a total stranger to
the soap and wa