Marrakesh, like all other inland cities of Morocco, has neither hotel nor guest-house.  It boasts some large fandaks, notably that of Hadj Larbi, where the caravans from the desert send their merchandise and chief merchants, but no sane European will choose to seek shelter in a fandak in Morocco unless there is no better place available.  There are clean fandaks in Sunset Land, but they are few and you must travel far to find them.  I had letters to the chief civilian resident of Marrakesh, Sidi Boubikir, British Political Agent, millionaire, land-owner, financier, builder of palaces, politician, statesman, and friend of all Englishmen who are well recommended to his care.  I had heard much of the clever old Moor, who was born in very poor surroundings, started life as a camel driver, and is now the wealthiest and most powerful unofficial resident in Southern Morocco, if not in all the Moghreb, so I bade M’Barak find him without delay.  The first person questioned directed us to one of Boubikir’s fandaks, and by its gate, in a narrow lane, where camels jostled the camp-mules until they nearly foundered in the underlying filth, we found the celebrated man sitting within the porch, on an old packing-case.

He looked up for a brief moment when the kaid dismounted and handed him my letter, and I saw a long, closely-shaven face, lighted by a pair of grey eyes that seemed much younger than the head in which they were set, and perfectly inscrutable.  He read the letter, which was in Arabic, from end to end, and then gave me stately greeting.

“You are very welcome,” he said.  “My house and all it holds are yours.”

I replied that we wanted nothing more than a modest shelter for the days of our sojourn in the city.  He nodded.

“Had you advised me of your visit in time,” he said, “my best house should have been prepared.  Now I will send with you my steward, who has the keys of all my houses.  Choose which you will have.”  I thanked him, the steward appeared, a stout, well-favoured man, whose djellaba was finer than his master’s.  Sidi Boubikir pointed to certain keys, and at a word several servants gathered about us.  The old man said that he rejoiced to serve the friend of his friends, and would look forward to seeing me during our stay.  Then we followed into an ill-seeming lane, now growing dark with the fall of evening.

We turned down an alley more muddy than the one just left behind, passed under an arch by a fruit stall with a covering of tattered palmetto, caught a brief glimpse of a mosque minaret, and heard the mueddin calling the Faithful to evening prayer.  In the shadow of the mosque, at the corner of the high-walled lane, there was a heavy metal-studded door.  The steward thrust a key into its lock, turned it, and we passed down a passage into an open patio.  It was a silent place, beyond the reach of the street echoes; there were four rooms built round the patio on the ground floor, and three or four above.  One side of the tower of the minaret was visible from the courtyard, but apart from that the place was nowhere overlooked.  To be sure, it was very dirty, but I had an idea that the steward had brought his men out for business, not for an evening stroll, so I bade Salam assure him that this place, known to the Marrakshis as Dar al Kasdir,[19] would serve our purposes.