THE METROPOLIS OF THE MOORS
APPROACHING FEZ
But there is in this world a great city, the metropolis of a nation, which is not like the cities that we know.
In the midst of a fertile, smiling wilderness, it is a stranger to all things that are new; its commerce ebbs and flows through channels unknown to the world. At its gates are no railways and no carriage-roads, but it holds infrequent communication with a distant port by means of caravans of mules and camels, and of messengers who run on foot. Its culture is the culture of the Fifteenth Century, its science of still earlier date; and truth there is yet hid by clouds of superstition. This city is the essence of the Middle Ages; it is the heart of a nation that was mummified eight hundred years ago by the religion of Mohammed. This city is called Fez; the land of which it is the capital is Morocco.
"IN THE MIDST OF A SMILING WILDERNESS"
The first glimpse of Fez is an event in the life of a traveler. Then, if ever, will be experienced one of those delicious little thrills that make their way down the spinal column of a man when he realizes that he has accomplished something of which he has long been dreaming. And when we, who have long been dreaming of a visit to the Moor's metropolis, actually behold it, though it first appears as only a faint line of walls and towers, almost undiscernible through the rough sea of heated air-waves that surge between us and the city, now that Fez at last has risen from this endless plain over which we have been toiling southward for eleven days, we feel that we must draw rein, and for a few minutes indulge in the enjoyment of that creeping thrill. There are so few of them in life; the traveler who can remember twenty of these delicious moments in as many years is fortunate above his kind!
"A FAINT LINE OF WALLS AND TOWERS"