and all who buy and sell therein, granting them prosperity and length of days.  And to these prayers, uttered with an intensity of devotion quite Mohammedan, all the listeners say Amen.  Only to Unbelievers like myself,—­to men who have never known, or knowing, have rejected Islam,—­is there aught repellent in the approaching business; and Unbelievers may well pass unnoticed.  In life the man who has the True Faith despises them; in death they become children of the Fire.  Is it not so set down?

Throughout this strange ceremony of prayer I seem to see the bull-ring again, and in place of the dilals the cuadrillas of the Matadors coming out to salute, before the alguazils open the gates of the toril and the slaying begins.  The dramatic intensity of either scene connects for me this slave market in Marrakesh with the plaza de toros in the shadow of the Giralda tower in Sevilla.  Strange to remember now and here, that the man who built the Kutubia tower for this thousand-year-old-city of Yusuf ben Tachfin, gave the Giralda to Andalusia.

Prayers are over—­the last Amen is said.  The dilals separate, each one going to the pens he presides over, and calling upon their tenants to come forth.  These selling men move with a dignity that is quite Eastern, and speak in calm and impressive tones.  They lack the frenzied energy of their brethren who traffic in the bazaars.

[Illustration:  ON THE ROAD TO THE SOK EL ABEED]

Obedient to the summons, the slaves face the light, the sheds yield up their freight, and there are a few noisy moments, bewildering to the novice, in which the auctioneers place their goods in line, rearrange dresses, give children to the charge of adults, sort out men and women according to their age and value, and prepare for the promenade.  The slaves will march round and round the circle of the buyers, led by the auctioneers, who will proclaim the latest bid and hand over any one of their charges to an intending purchaser, that he may make his examination before raising the price.  In the procession now forming for the first parade, five, if not six, of the seven ages set out by the melancholy Jaques are represented.  There are men and women who can no longer walk upright, however the dilal may insist; there are others of middle age, with years of active service before them; there are young men full of vigour and youth, fit for the fields, and young women, moving for once unveiled yet unrebuked, who will pass at once to the hareem.  And there are children of every age, from babies who will be sold with their mothers to girls and boys upon the threshold of manhood and womanhood.  All are dressed in bright colours and displayed to the best advantage, that the hearts of bidders may be moved and their purses opened widely.

“It will be a fine sale,” says my neighbour, a handsome middle-aged Moor from one of the Atlas villages, who had chosen his place before I reached the market.  “There must be well nigh forty slaves, and this is good, seeing that the Elevated Court is at Fez.  It is because our Master—­Allah send him more victories!—­has been pleased to ‘visit’ Sidi Abdeslam, and send him to the prison of Mequinez.  All the wealth he has extorted has been taken away from him by our Master, and he will see no more light.  Twenty or more of these women are of his house.”