GOOD SHOOTING IN THE HEART OF THE CITY
From Mequinez we carry away impressions as enduring as its walls and gates. We know that we shall never forget the sadness of this empty city, its silence, and its forlorn magnificence. In all Morocco there is no more artistic structure than the Kasbah Gate of Mequinez. It is as it was; no restoration has marred it. Time has but softened it, made it more beautiful. Corinthian pillars, brought from the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis, add to its dignity and tell of a civilization that long antedates that of the Arab conquerors. It, too, like every gate and every palace in the city of Mulai Ismail recounts its tragedy. The man whose mind conceived its form, its intricate designs, its unsymmetrical perfections, fell victim to his artist-pride. For, when the Sultan complimented him on his achievements, he declared that he could build a gate more beautiful, more imposing, did the imperial master so desire; and this boast cost the architect his eyes, for the Sultan was resolved that this, his favorite gate, should have no rival and no peer. Less beautiful, but more imposing is the great North Gate by which we enter and through which we ride out into the black, treacherous country. Our muleteers have halted at a fountain to drink and pray; for the fountain marks the burial-place of a great Moslem saint, the founder of the fraternity of the Hamdouchi, a kindred society to that of the fanatical Aissaoua, a sect of self-torturers and religious maniacs.
A THOROUGHFARE IN MEQUINEZ
THE BENI-HASAN PLAIN
THE NORTH GATE OF MEQUINEZ
Devotions ended, the caravan reforms, and we find ourselves trailing across an empty land, which we have been warned on no account to enter. Two days of uneventful travel over the hills of a rolling region brings us to the brink of the interior highland, from which we look down upon the level plain that stretches westward to the wide Atlantic, many miles away. Below us lies the country of the famous Beni-Hasan tribe. The "Sons of Hasan" are famous as horsemen, warriors, and pirates of the plain. Our route lies westward across their territory to the seaport city called Rabat, where we hope to embark in due time on one of the infrequent coasting-steamers that ply up and down the western coast of Africa.