In Morocco (1920) (14595583068)

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



Text Appearing Before Image:
in withthe boom of northern seas, and under a mistynorthern sky. It is one of the surprises of Moroccoto find the familiar African pictures bathed in thisunfamiliar haze. Even the fierce midday sun doesnot wholly dispel it: the air remains thick, opales-cent, like water slightly clouded by milk. One istempted to say that Morocco is Tunisia seen bymoonlight. The European town of Rabat, a rapidly develop-ing community, lies almost wholly outside thewalls of the old Arab city. The latter, founded inthe twelfth century by the great Almohad con-queror of Spain, Yacoub-el-Mansour, stretches itsmighty walls to the rivers mouth. Thence theyclimb the cliff to enclose the Kasbah * of the Ou-dayas, a troublesome tribe whom one of the Al-mohad Sultans, mistrusting their good faith, packedup one day, flocks, tents and camels, and carriedacross the bled to stow them into these stout wallsunder his imperial eye. Great crenellated ram-parts, Cyclopean, superb, follow the curve of the * Citadel. ( 16)
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RABAT AND SALE cliff. On the landward side they are interruptedby a gate-tower resting on one of the most noblydecorated of the horseshoe arches that break themighty walls of Moroccan cities. Underneath thetower the vaulted entrance turns, Arab fashion, atright angles, profiling its red arch against darknessand mystery. This bending of passages, so char-acteristic a device of the Moroccan builder, is likean architectural expression of the tortuous secretsoul of the land. Outside the Kasbah a narrow foot-path issqueezed between the walls and the edge of thecliff. Toward sunset it looks down on a strangescene. To the south of the citadel the cliff descendsto a long dune sloping to a sand-beach; and duneand beach are covered w^ith the slanting head-stones of the immense Arab cemetery of El Alou.Acres and acres of graves fall away from the redramparts to the grey sea; and breakers rollingstraight from America send their spray across thelowest stones. There are always things going on towar