AN ARAB STEED
CHAPTER IX
THROUGH A SOUTHERN PROVINCE
The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot;
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower, and flower to fruit.
Atalanta in Calydon.
Even in these fugitive records of my last journey into the "Extreme West," I find it hard to turn from Marrakesh. Just as the city held me within its gates until further sojourn was impossible, so its memories crowd upon me now, and I recall with an interest I may scarcely hope to communicate the varied and compelling appeals it made to me at every hour of the day. Yet I believe, at least I hope, that most of the men and women who strive to gather for themselves some picture of the world's unfamiliar aspects will understand the fascination to which I refer, despite my failure to give it fitting expression. Sevilla in Andalusia held me in the same way when I went from Cadiz to spend a week-end there, and the three days became as many weeks, and would have become as many months or years had I been my own master—which to be sure we none of us are. The hand of the Moor is clearly to be seen in Sevilla to-day, notably in the Alcazar and the Giralda tower, fashioned by the builder of the Kutubia that stands like a stately lighthouse in the Blad al Hamra.
So, with the fascination of the city for excuse, I lingered in Marrakesh and went daily to the bazaars to make small purchases. The dealers were patient, friendly folk, and found no trouble too much, so that there was prospect of a sale at the end of it. Most of them had a collapsible set of values for their wares, but the dealer who had the best share of my Moorish or Spanish dollars was an old man in the bazaar of the brass-workers, who used to say proudly, "Behold in me thy servant, Abd el Kerim,[43] the man of one price."