The fighting and the shells from French ships had laid many bodies in the streets and had wrecked many houses and some mosques. Certain Moors, less ignorant of the French power, had asked the French to spare the mosques and the ‘Saint Houses,’ domed tombs of dead shereefs, and when the fighting began the Arabs, seeing these places were untouched, concluded, of course, that the protection came from Allah, until they entered them and drew the French fire. Casablanca, or, as the Arabs call it, _Dar el Baida_, ‘White House,’ was a desolate-looking place when we arrived three weeks after the bombardment. Hardly a male Moor was to be seen. The whole Moslem population, with the exception of a few men of wealth who enjoy European protection, and some servants of consulates, had deserted the town and had not yet begun to return. Jews in black caps and baggy trousers were the only labourers, and they worked with a will recovering damaged property at good pay, and grinning at their good fortune. In the attack the Moors had driven them to the boats, but now the Moors themselves had had to go. Native Spaniards did the lighter work. A Spaniard and a Jewish boy took our luggage to an hotel, of which all the rooms were already occupied, even to the bathroom and the wine closet, as the long zinc tub in the courtyard, filled with bottles, testified. The proprietor told us that for ten francs a day we might have the dining-room to sleep in, but on investigation we decided to hunt further. Speaking Spanish with a grand manner, for he was a cavalier fellow, the hotel-keeper then informed us through an interpreter that he wanted to do what he could for us because he too was an American. The explanation (for which we asked) was that in New York he had a brother whom he had once visited for a few months, and that at that time, ‘to favour an American gentleman,’ he had taken out naturalisation papers and voted for the mayor.