A PUBLIC SQUARE
"STARED AT, MUTTERED AT, SCOWLED AT"
But as for the ladies we encountered—bless their feminine souls!—with them, womanly curiosity proved stronger than religious prejudice. They frankly halted, turned their pretty faces toward us and gazed up smilingly at the arriving travelers. We must admit, however, that they had the advantage of us; we were compelled to take for granted both the prettiness and smiles, and it was pleasanter to do so; moreover, there was nothing else to do. Still, the features of her who paused on the left, as vaguely molded by the masking haik, were not of Grecian purity. She would have charmed us more had she not drawn her veil so tight. On the right an older woman was more discreet; like the wise Katisha she believed that it is not alone in the face that beauty is to be sought, so she sparingly displayed her charms, revealing only a left heel which people may have come many miles to see. The fair one in the middle bares her face in most immodest fashion: through an opening at least three quarters of an inch in width two pretty eyes of black are flaming; and, indeed, it may be set down as an almost invariable rule that the wider the opening 'twixt veil and haik, the prettier the eyes that flash between.
"WOMANLY CURIOSITY STRONGER THAN RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE"
With maledictions on the prevailing style of dress for Moorish beauties, we ride on, passing finally from the empty spaciousness of New Fez into the crowded compactness of the old Medina. Here our pace, always slow, must be made even slower; our caravan winds at a careful walk into a labyrinth of narrow ways, so dark, so crowded, so redolent of Oriental life, so saturated with the atmosphere of Islam and the East, that we are thrilled with pleasure at the thought that we are for a space to become dwellers in this strange metropolis and to live its life—a life so utterly unrelated to that of the cities whence we come.
"THE CROWDED COMPACTNESS OF THE OLD MEDINA"
First we must secure an abiding-place, for there are no hotels in Fez—at least none in which foreigners could live and remain in possession of their self-respect and sanity. The only places of public entertainment are the Fondaks, where men and mules are lodged and fed. A glance through the door of the Fondak, where our own faithful animals were later in the day entered as boarders for an indefinite period, proved how utterly preposterous it would be for us to depend upon the hotel resources of the capital. Although the packs have been removed, the pack-saddles, each a burden in itself, have not been taken off nor will they be until to-morrow for fear the animals uncovered while heated from exertion might catch cold, fall sick, and die. In fact, the mules have not been free from these cruel weights at any time during the journey of eleven days. Why the idea of suicide does not appeal to the Morocco mule is but another of the unaccountable problems of the land.