Sharp County record., 1882-07-13
In FeZ.

The first impression made upon the
traveller by the present aspect of the city
of Fez. which was at one time a focus
of Arabic luxury and learning, and
which comprised population not less
than 100000 souls, is that of colossal
city sunk into decrepitude, and slowly
crumbling into dust. There are tall
houses which seem formed of buildings
piled one upon the other, all falling to
pieces. however, cracked from roof to
base, and propped up on every side,
with no opening save some loop-hole IN
the shape of a cross. Long, dismal
stretches of street, fanked by high, bare
walls, recalling the walls of fortress
streets running up hill and down, en-
numbered with stones and the ruins OF
falling buildings, twisted and turning,
too, at every twenty or thirty PAGES,
every now and then a long covered
passage, dark as a cellar, where you
have to feel your way--blind alleys, re-
cesses, dens filled with bones, dead ami
mails and heaps of putrid matter-ths
whole stepped in dim and melancholy
twilight. In some places the ground IS
so broken, the dust so thick, the smell
so horrid, the flies so numerous, that
you have to stop to take breath. Here
and there you may hear the noise OF a
mill. a murmur of water, the click OF a
weaver's loom, a chanting OF nasal
voices, which you are told come from a
school of children; but you see nothing
and no one anywhere. By and by,
however, as you approach the center OF
the city people become numerous; the
men stop to let you pass, and stare as
tonished the women turn back or hide
themselves; the children scream and
run; the large boys growl and shake
their fists at a distance, mindful OF the
soldiers and their sticks. Now you
come to one of the principal streets
about six feet wide, and full OF people
who crowd about you. The soldiers
shout, and push, and strike in vain, and
at last make a sort of bulwark OF their
bodies by forming circle around you
and clasping hands, face outward.
There are a thousand eyes upon you;
you can scarcely breathe in the press
and heat, end plod slowly on, on, stop
ping every moment to give passage to
a Moor on horseback, or veiled lady
on a camel, or an ass with a load OF
bleeding sleeps heads. To the right
and left are thronged bazars; inn court
yards heaped with merchandise; doors
of mosques, through which you catch
glimpses of arcades in perspective and
figures PROSTATE in prayer All along
the streets leading mosqueward there
is, for the most part, nothing to be seen
but silent forms in white hoods, moving
like specters. Now and then in the
heart of the city you come on fountains
richly ornamented with mosaics, ara
besque doors, arched courts, the few
faded vestiges of a once sumptuous
architecture. The air is impregnated
with an acute and mingled odor of aloes,
spices and incense. You seem to be
walking in an immense drug shop.
Presently you 90 into the bazaar and lind
that the shops, as in Tangiers, are mere
dens opened in the wall; you cross,
iosted by the crowd, the cloth bazaar,
that of slippers, that of earthenware,
that of metal ornaments, which, alto
gether, form labyrinth of alleys rooted
with canes and branches of trees. Pass
ing through a vegetable market thronged
with women, who lift their arms and
scream curses at you, the traveller comes
out again into the center of the city.
There he has the same experience as be-
fore, and finally gets out at gate and
takes turn outside the walls. Baptist
Weekly.