half groans, were heard. Perhaps these were accounted for by bats, geckos or small owls that were hovering there; but, who knows? Perhaps the souls of the chieftains of those courageous mountain tribes once murdered here were come to curse and threaten the merciless rulers of Maghreb; or perhaps the shades of murdered Christian martyrs, brought by the Moors from the southern shores of Iberia, Italy, the Balearic Islands and Sardinia, had returned to the Bab el-Maroukh of their suffering and despair.
Our Hafid was in love with the old city, or Fez el-Bali, where he was born and raised, and spoke with contempt of the newer town, or Fez el-Jdid. Under his guidance we studied carefully the old quarter. Passing once more out through Bab el-Maroukh we strolled through the great Sherarda, kasba, an immense rectangular wall enclosing the barracks and homes of the Sherarda and Udaya tribes, who were drawn upon to form the kernel of the sultan's army. In the old markets, set in contrasting juxtaposition to the very modern French barracks and hospital, we found one element that never ceased to hold our attention—the meskins, or beggars, of the town. Practically every African meskin is a member of a powerful organization that covers all the Moroccan and Algerian towns and is really a special clan, possessing its own traditions and laws and even its own schools. It boasts some of the wittiest and apparently the most lighthearted individuals in all Maghreb and is really a caste that lays special stress upon the laws of heredity which carry down special privileges in certain families.
Every beggar, man or woman, is in the first place a
