Writing of religion, I needs must set down a word in this place of the men and women who work for the Southern Morocco Mission in Marrakesh.  The beauty of the city has long ceased to hold any fresh surprises for them, their labour is among the people who “walk in noonday as in the night.”  It is not necessary to be of their faith to admire the steadfast devotion to high ideals that keeps Mr. Nairn and his companions in Marrakesh.  I do not think that they make converts in the sense that they desire, the faith of Islam suits Morocco and the Moors, and it will not suffer successful invasion, but the work of the Mission has been effective in many ways.  If the few Europeans who visit the city are free to wander unchallenged, unmolested through its every street, let them thank the missionaries; if the news that men from the West are straight-dealing, honourable, and slaves to truth, has gone from the villages on the hither side of Atlas down to the far cities of the Sus, let the missionaries be praised.  And if a European woman can go unveiled yet uninsulted through Marrakesh, the credit is due to the ladies of the Mission.  It may be said without mental reservation that the Southern Morocco Mission accomplishes a great work, and is most successful in its apparent failure.  It does not make professing Christians out of Moors, but it teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the limits of their own faith, and if they are kinder and cleaner and more honourable by reason of their intercourse with the “tabibs” and “tabibas,” the world gains and Morocco is well served.  When the Sultan was in difficulties towards the end of 1902, and the star of Bu Hamara was in the ascendant, Sir Arthur Nicolson, our Minister in Tangier, ordered all British subjects to leave the inland towns for the coast.  As soon as the news reached the Marrakshis, the houses of the missionaries were besieged by eager crowds of Moors and Berbers, offering to defend the well-beloved tabibs against all comers, and begging them not to go away.  Very reluctantly Mr. Nairn and his companions obeyed the orders sent from Tangier, but, having seen their wives and children safely housed in Djedida, they returned to their work.

[Illustration:  FRUIT MARKET, MARRAKESH]

The Elhara or leper quarter is just outside one of the city gates, and after some effort of will, I conquered my repugnance and rode within its gate.  The place proved to be a collection of poverty-stricken hovels built in a circle, of the native tapia, which was crumbling to pieces through age and neglect.  Most of the inhabitants were begging in the city, where they are at liberty to remain until the gates are closed, but there were a few left at home, and I had some difficulty in restraining the keeper of Elhara, who wished to parade the unfortunate creatures before me that I might not miss any detail of their sufferings.  Leper women peeped out from corners, as Boubikir’s “house” had done; little leper children