The Coolidge examiner., 1932-10-21

smartly uniformed French officers.
There are telephones and electric
lights and motor cars. Everything
is modern and efficient and over
1900 Europeans live within it's bor-
ders.
Native Rabat is another story.
Squat houses line the narrow
streets. From the mosque tower the
muezzin calls the faithful to prayer.
Turbaned Arabs of the Benz Hassan
tribe, Berbers from the hills and ne
groes file through the bazaars.
Heavily yelled women travel silently
through the crooked streets. The
plaintive, barbaric wailing, which
the MOrOccans call music, may be
heard at all times during the day.
Groups of the sick and the de-
formed, clad in dirty white rags, sit
in the streets of the bazaars beg
ging aims from the passers-by.
Native Rabat Is Picturesque.
The souks or bazaar of Rabat are
as famous as their wares, red and
yellow leather boots, pottery, and
the rugs which the Rabati women
weave in their homes and color with
vegetable dyes. These rugs, when
new, are little too brilliant for
western taste, but they fade into a
pale. harmonizing blending Of colors
with wear.
There is slight demand for chairs
or knives and forks in the sOuks.
Chairs are used only by the stiff
legged Christian tourists who visit
the city and knives and forks are
not necessary to eat couscous, the
staple Wand of the Moroccan meal
Couscous is made with flour and
meat and vegetables and tastes not
unlike the American dish of dump
lingS cooked with meat. 1t is served
in big pot, and everyone sticks in
his hand and brings forth his pOr-
ton in three fingers. To use four
or two fingers is extremely bad man.
ners. Moroccan etiquette demands
three.
Because of it's mild climate, Rabat
is a favOrite residence Of the pres
ent sultan of Morocco, Sidi Moham-
med. who has other palaces in Fee,
Mekinez and Marrakesh.
Marrakesh and Fee are, the out
standing inland cities. Marrakesh
is one of the busiest marts in French
Morocco. An almost constant stream
of camel and donkey caravans
passes through the city gates where
traders meet each other and also
the local wool and leather mer-
chants, tanners. silk weavers, armOr-
ers and manufacturers of agricul-
tural implements.
In the Marrakesh Bazaars.
The bazaars in the narrow, dusty
streets of the city are thronged from
dawn to dusk. In one street deeply
sunburned Berber men in flowing,
white robes and turban-wound heads
stand in groups while others bicker
with sullen, bewhiskered shOpkeep-
ers over the price of inexpensive
merchandise.
Fierce looking tribesmen from the
nearby Atlas mountains with fire.
arms protruding from their belts ap-
pear hypnotiZed by half-naked silk
spinners and dyers plying their
trades in congested stalls. Fright
ened black slave men, stopped under
back breaking loads, stink before the
piercing glances of their beturbaned
masters. Robust slave girls, with
cumbersome jars balanced on their
hips, cautiously come and go with
out jOstling other pedestrians of
high caste, ViyaciOuS Berber women,
with homemade blankets accOst
dusty camel men fresh from the out
lying desert regions.
Around the corner peoples of
many races watch metal workers
hammer copper, silver and steel into
plate and receptacles of all kinds,
between shelves where finished ar
ticles of their labor glisten in the
bright African sunlight.
The thrOnged streets lead the trav-
eler to believe that all of Marra-
kesh's houses have emptied their
10000 occupants, as well as the
citys visitors, into the baZaars at
one time; but nearby. the Jama-el-
F'na, the Marrakesh public square.
is also surging with humanity,
jostled by donkeys and awkward
camels, whose loads overhang their
sides.