File:In Morocco (1920) (14595564629).jpg

Identifier: inmorocco00wharuoft (find matches)
Title: In Morocco
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937
Subjects: Morocco -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York Scribner
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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s hungthrough the reed roofing overhead, and grape-clusters cast their classic shadow at our feet. Itwas like walking on the unrolled frieze of a whiteEtruscan vase patterned with black vine garlands. The silence and emptiness of the place began tostrike us: there was no sign of the Oriental crowdthat usually springs out of the dust ar the approachof strangers. But suddenly we heard close by thelament of the rekka (a kind of long fife), accom-panied by a wild thrum-thrum of earthenwaredrums and a curious excited chanting of men*svoices. I had heard such a chant before, at theother end of North Africa, in Kairouan, one of theother great Sanctuaries of Islam, where the sect ofthe Aissaouas celebrate their sanguinary rites inthe Zaouia* of their confraternity. Yet it seemedincredible that if the Aissaouas of Moulay Idrisswere performing their ceremonies that day thechief of police should be placidly leading us throughthe streets in the very direction from which the * Sacred college. (48)
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VOLUBILIS, MOULAY IDRISS AND MEKNEZ chant was coming. The Moroccan, though he hasno desire to get into trouble with the Christian,prefers to be left alone on feast-days, especially insuch a stronghold of the faith as Moulay Idriss. But Geschehen ist geschehen is the sum ofOriental philosophy. For centuries Moulay Idrisshad held out fanatically on its holy steep; then,suddenly, in 1916, its chiefs saw that the game wasup, and surrendered without a pretense of resist-ance. Now the whole thing was over, the new con-ditions were accepted, and the chief of police as-sured us that with the French uniform at our sidewe should be safe anywhere. The Aissaouas .-^ he explained. No, this isanother sect, the Hamadchas, who are performingtheir ritual dance on the feast-day of their patron,the marabout Hamadch, whose tomb is in the Zer-houn. The feast is celebrated publicly in themarket-place of Moulay Idriss. As he spoke we came out into the market-place,and understood why there had been no crowd

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