The Burton Holmes lectures; . ^ they arenot eager to attract pur-chasers, for they hide what-ever they may have beneaththeir haiks ; but now andthen a man approaches, andan embroidered vest, a pieceof silk, a jewel or a ring isreluctantly brought forth andpassed across the barrier in nkaring a pnKiAi. <.f thk karieein exchange for silver coins; then one white, shrouded figurerises and fades away amid the ghostly throng. To us, new-comers to this land of mystery, it is as disconcerting to facea crowd of these women, as for the soldier to stand unmovedbefore masked batteries. We are conscious
The Burton Holmes lectures; . ^ they arenot eager to attract pur-chasers, for they hide what-ever they may have beneaththeir haiks ; but now andthen a man approaches, andan embroidered vest, a pieceof silk, a jewel or a ring isreluctantly brought forth andpassed across the barrier in nkaring a pnKiAi. <.f thk karieein exchange for silver coins; then one white, shrouded figurerises and fades away amid the ghostly throng. To us, new-comers to this land of mystery, it is as disconcerting to facea crowd of these women, as for the soldier to stand unmovedbefore masked batteries. We are conscious that two scoreof bright, black eyes are leveled at us, but we cannot readthe message they project—the faces that would make themessage legible are veiled. Are the lips curled in scorn ofthe infidel ? Are smiles of ridicule excited by his strangeforeign dress, so pitifully convenient and unpicturesque, sotight, so graceless, when compared to the splendid sweep ofthe Moorish costume ? Or, in some faces, is there \\ritten a. 166 FEZ deep, bitter yeaniinj^ for knowled^^e of the outside living-world,— the world of to-day, of which we stray modernscome here as reminders ? But as w^e wander ever throughthe bazaars, meeting everywhere the same impassive, un-curious expressions on the uncovered faces of the men, weare inclined to believe that to the Moor, Morocco is theworld,— that for him, outside its borders, geograjdncally orintellectually, there is nothing worthy his consideration. Afew progressive Moors, so we were told, evince a shadowy-interest in the universe at large by subscribing for a dailypaper. This j^aper is not printed in Fez, w^iere journalismis unknown, it comes from far-off Cairo on the Nile, andTeaches its eager Moorish readers after a voyage of sevendays by sea and eight by land. Remembering these things, it is difficult to believe thatFez is, in the eyes of the Mohammedans, an important seatof learning, but so it is ; for does not the famous universit}-and m
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectvoyages, bookyear1901
