HIS FIRST EMBARKATION
We must wait our turn; for there are other caravans, with camels, mules, and horses massed upon the sands. At last our animals are all embarked with the exception of Bokhurmur's burro, who, accustomed only to fording, requires much persuasion before he will trust himself to this new-fangled contrivance. During the brief period of calm that intervenes between the embarkation and subsequent landing on the Rabat beach, we look in admiration at the scene about us. Above the palisade on the south bank rises a noble half-completed tower. We have long since heard reports of it. We know it as the Beni-Hasan tower, a sister to the famed Giralda of Seville and to the Kutubiya of Morocco City. The same Sultan, Yakub el Mansur, the great builder, reared this trinity of towers about eight hundred years ago. To-day they prove the vast extent of his dominion; to him owed allegiance all the lands which lie between Andalusia in the south of Spain, and Marrakesh, on the borders of the Great Sahara. But the Beni-Hasan pile was never finished. It stands to-day as the workmen left it in the year 1200.
RABAT—THE CITY AND THE CITADEL
Rabat owes its existence to the builder of the tower, who late in the twelfth century founded on this promontory his "Camp of Victory," "Rabat el Fatih." The frowning citadel sits darkly on the crest between the harbor and the sea, the smiling city lies gleaming just below. We follow the broad, animated beach, enter at the water-gate, present our credentials to the governor, and after some delay a camping-ground is assigned us on the crest within the shadow of the citadel, under the very walls of the powder magazine. It is not until our outfit is here unpacked, that we remark the fact that we are pitching our tents in a graveyard. All roundabout us are neglected graves, tombstones inclined at most distressing angles, with hollows where there should be mounds, and weeds and rubbish in place of greens and flowers.
Poor Abuktayer, sick from fatigue and bad water drunk on the journey, is excused from work, and sits amid the mossy mortuary tablets, a picture of weariness and woe, watching the other servants as they wedge tent-pegs into the cracks of tombstones.
OUR CAMP AT THE RABAT POWDER HOUSE
