The more naive interpretation, however, has its advantages,
since it enables the devotees to divide their ritual
duties into two classes, the devotions of the free
men being addressed to the saint who died in his bed,
while the slaves belong to the slave, and must therefore
simulate his horrid end. And this is the reason
why most of the white caftans simply rock and writhe,
while the humble blue shirts drip with blood.
[Illustration: From a photograph taken by
Captain Henissart of the French Army
Moulay-Idriss—the market-place. Procession
of the confraternity of the Hamadchas]
The sun was setting when we came down from our terrace
above the market-place. To find a lodging for
the night we had to press on to Meknez, where we were
awaited at the French military post; therefore we
were reluctantly obliged to refuse an invitation to
take tea with the Caid, whose high-perched house commands
the whole white amphitheatre of the town. It
was disappointing to leave Moulay Idriss with the
Hamadchas howling their maddest, and so much besides
to see; but as we drove away under the long shadows
of the olives we counted ourselves lucky to have entered
the sacred town, and luckier still to have been there
on the day of the dance which, till a year ago, no
foreigner had been allowed to see.
A fine French road runs from Moulay Idriss to Meknez,
and we flew on through the dusk between wooded hills
and open stretches on which the fires of nomad camps
put orange splashes in the darkness. Then the
moon rose, and by its light we saw a widening valley,
and gardens and orchards that stretched up to a great
walled city outlined against the stars.
MEKNEZ
All that evening, from the garden of the Military
Subdivision on the opposite height, we sat and looked
across at the dark tree-clumps and moonlit walls of
Meknez, and listened to its fantastic history.
Meknez was built by the Sultan Moulay-Ismael, around
the nucleus of a small town of which the site happened
to please him, at the very moment when Louis XIV was
creating Versailles. The coincidence of two contemporary
autocrats calling cities out of the wilderness has
caused persons with a taste for analogy to describe
Meknez as the Versailles of Morocco: an epithet
which is about as instructive as it would be to call
Phidias the Benvenuto Cellini of Greece.
There is, however, a pretext for the comparison in
the fact that the two sovereigns took a lively interest
in each other’s affairs. Moulay-Ismael
sent several embassies to treat with Louis XIV on the
eternal question of piracy and the ransom of Christian
captives, and the two rulers were continually exchanging
gifts and compliments.
