The sun is sinking on the Almohadian wall that forms a corner with the mosque Bab-Guissa. Soon will come from myriad minarets, the call for evening prayer. The mountain donkeys no longer lurch through the Gate; and the slaves of the imprisoned Sultan are gone. This rocky height studded with moldering tombs, this wall and this tower form a natural amphitheater. It is crowded with Moors. They squat on the ground, swathed in burnouses. Water-boys thread silently. All indeed is silent, facing down to a central point within the wall where sits a man. His beard is white and his voice is gentle: he is a man with exquisite hands and manners of the Court. And he is speaking so quietly, that the massed crowd must hold silent indeed, if it would hear him. He is the Chronicler of Fez--poet, historian, journalist: one of the great sons of the Moghreb. Each day at nightfall, for an hour, he bespeaks in his own verse the glory of Islam. Each of his tales lasts three months: there are four of them to the year. His unemphatic words give to the men of Fez two realities of Islam: the splendor which was, and the splendor which is eternal. He speaks, not without humor; his immobile body radiates peace. He tells of the gardens underneath which flows water--the Garden whither Islam somnolently moves through this demonic hour of wireless, guns and rail-ways.... * * * * * The capital of the Sultanate is Rbat. From here, the Almohadian troops set sail for Spain; and after the triumph of Alarcos in 1195, Rbat-el-Fath--“Camp of Victory”--received its name. Fez, in hills, is gold: Rbat is a dazzling white over the sea. The bou Regreg slopes down within its sands, between two gentle promontories. On one of them Rbat, on the other Sla--ancient cities, equally white above the sea, equally proud, equally hostile. You can row from the _soukhs_ of Rbat to the palaces of Sla in a minute. But these are worlds kept separate in an ageless confrontation. Time was when the two cities were independent; blood stained the sands of the Regreg. Each town slants to the sea upon a mighty dune; and this dune is a divided graveyard. The ocean has opened Rbat. Its bright streets run with the breeze. Its masonry is less delicate and more resolute than that of Fez. In its soukhs is a tang of salt. The Moors themselves are less shut up. Though their burnouses swathe them and the women walk as hidden in their veils, an Atlantic rhythm has crept within these folds; the somnambulance is brighter. “We have lived fair days In Granada, house of delight. Among its roses and its roses budding We have sped many a silver night. Alas! no more for our enraptured use The dwellings of Andalús..... Hush! do not make me suffer more.”