As we drove downward the rock gradually began to turn
to red earth fissured by yellow streams, and stray
knots of palms sprang up, lean and dishevelled, about
well-heads where people were watering camels and donkeys.
To the east, dominating the oasis, the twin peaked
hills of the Ghilis, fortified to the crest, mounted
guard over invisible Marrakech; but still, above the
palms, we saw only that lonely and triumphant tower.
Presently we crossed the Oued Tensif on an old bridge
built by Moroccan engineers. Beyond the river
were more palms, then olive-orchards, then the vague
sketch of the new European settlement, with a few shops
and cafes on avenues ending suddenly in clay pits,
and at last Marrakech itself appeared to us, in the
form of a red wall across a red wilderness.
We passed through a gate and were confronted by other
ramparts. Then we entered an outskirt of dusty
red lanes bordered by clay hovels with draped figures
slinking by like ghosts. After that more walls,
more gates, more endlessly winding lanes, more gates
again, more turns, a dusty open space with donkeys
and camels and negroes; a final wall with a great
door under a lofty arch—and suddenly we
were in the palace of the Bahia, among flowers and
shadows and falling water.
THE BAHIA
Whoever would understand Marrakech must begin by mounting
at sunset to the roof of the Bahia.
Outspread below lies the oasis-city of the south,
flat and vast as the great nomad camp it really is,
its low roofs extending on all sides to a belt of
blue palms ringed with desert. Only two or three
minarets and a few noblemen’s houses among gardens
break the general flatness; but they are hardly noticeable,
so irresistibly is the eye drawn toward two dominant
objects—the white wall of the Atlas and
the red tower of the Koutoubya.
Foursquare, untapering, the great tower lifts its
flanks of ruddy stone. Its large spaces of unornamented
wall, its triple tier of clustered openings, lightening
as they rise from the severe rectangular lights of
the first stage to the graceful arcade below the parapet,
have the stern harmony of the noblest architecture.
The Koutoubya would be magnificent anywhere; in this
flat desert it is grand enough to face the Atlas.
The Almohad conquerors who built the Koutoubya and
embellished Marrakech dreamed a dream of beauty that
extended from the Guadalquivir to the Sahara; and
at its two extremes they placed their watch-towers.
The Giralda watched over civilized enemies in a land
of ancient Roman culture, the Koutoubya stood at the
edge of the world, facing the hordes of the desert.
