between the living and the dead was accentuated by the freshness of the day, the life that thronged the streets, the absence of a coffin, the weird, sonorous chaunting of the mourners.  The deceased must have been a man of mark, for the crowd preceding the bier was composed largely of beggars, on their way to the cemetery, where a gift of food would be distributed.  Following their master’s remains came two slaves, newly manumitted, their certificates of freedom borne aloft in cleft sticks to testify before all men to the generosity of the loudly lamented.  Doubtless the shroud of the dead had been sprinkled with water brought from the well Zem Zem, which is by the mosque of Mecca, and is said to have been miraculously provided for Hagar, when Ishmael, then a little boy, was like to die of thirst in the wilderness.

I watched the procession wind its way out of sight to the burial-ground by the mosque, whose mueddin would greet its arrival with the cry, “May Allah have mercy upon him.”  Then the dead man would be carried to the cemetery, laid on his right side looking towards Mecca, and the shroud would be untied, that there may be no awkwardness or delay upon the day of the Resurrection.  And the Kadi or f’K’hay[44] would say, “O Allah, if he did good, over-estimate his goodness; and if he did evil, forget his evil deeds; and of Thy Mercy grant that he may experience Thine Acceptance; and spare him the trials and troubles of the grave....  Of Thy Mercy grant him freedom from torment until Thou send him to Paradise, O Thou Most Pitiful of the pitying....  Pardon us, and him, and all Moslems, O Lord of Creation.”

[Illustration:  A YOUNG MARRAKSHI]

On the three following mornings the men of the deceased’s house would attend by the newly-made grave, in company with the tolba, and would distribute bread and fruit to the poor, and when their task was over and the way clear, the veiled women would bring flowers, with myrtle, willows, and young leaves of the palm, and lay them on the grave, and over these the water-carrier would empty his goat-skin.  I knew that the dead man would have gone without flinching to his appointed end, not as one who fears, but rather as he who sets out joyfully to a feast prepared in his honour.  His faith had kept all doubts at bay, and even if he had been an ill liver the charitable deeds wrought in his name by surviving relatives would enable him to face the two angels who descend to the grave on the night following a man’s burial and sit in judgment upon his soul.  This one who passed me on his last journey would tell the angels of the men who were slaves but yesterday and were now free, he would speak of the hungry who had been fed, and of the intercession of the righteous and learned.  These facts and his faith, the greatest fact of all, would assuredly satisfy Munkir and Nakir.[45] Small wonder if no manner of life, however vile, stamps ill-livers in Morocco with the seal we learn to recognise in the Western world.  For the Moslem death has no sting, and hell no victory.  Faith, whether it be in One God, in a Trinity, in Christ, Mohammed, or Buddha, is surely the most precious of all possessions, so it be as virile and living a thing as it is in Sunset Land.