Drunkenness seems very common in the streets of the _mellah_, and it is this fact that gave rise to the recent complaints as to the persecution of the Jews. As far as the Sultan is concerned, they can get as drunk as they like in their own quarter, for they are under a Sheikh of their own; but he naturally objected to them selling _mahia_ to the soldiery, for whose crimes he was responsible. However, in spite of the fact that the Jews are, or ought to be, almost all Moorish subjects, the Sultan has not been able to prevent this nuisance, for the cry of persecution at once arises. I was asked on the last two occasions that I visited Marakesh to make inquiries as to the state of the Jews there, and had opportunities of speaking with, and consulting, the leading and most respectable of the Israelites. They one and all made light of the complaint of general persecution, but mentioned that individual cases did exist where Jews had been hardly treated on insufficient evidence. However, such is far more often the case with Moors. I have met with much kindness on my travels from the Jews of the interior, and also at times with no little show of fanatical hatred; and I think that the most respectable of their tribe in all the towns acknowledged that the cry of persecution was more an attempt to become exempt from taxation than for justice for wrongs done. There can be no doubt, however, that in former times the Jews were cruelly used; but the late Sultan, Mulai el Hassen, was a broad-minded man, and never refused to listen to their petitions. No one mourned his death more sincerely than the peace-abiding members of that tribe, whose wrongs he was ever ready to redress, though only naturally he put opposition in the way of those who, taking advantage of European protection or his own leniency, practised nefarious usury with his subjects. The population of Marakesh to-day does not probably number more than some 40,000 souls, though it is said that within a hundred years of its founding by Yusuf in 1062 A.D. it contained some 700,000 inhabitants. There is no doubt, though this figure is probably an exaggeration, that it was at one time a city of great importance and learning, for even Europe sent its sons to be educated at the great colleges that existed there at that time. I have written but little as to Marakesh. It is a city that has so often been described by other travellers, that it has been my purpose here merely to sketch its peculiarities and to give a general [Illustration: _A Street Scene in Marakesh._]