their chief arose and silently made a tour 
of inspection and again seated himself as 
motionless as the forms of his men. 
MEQUINEZ THE BEAUTIFUL 
From out the silence of the night 
voices of the past seemed to speak. The 
spirit forms of the great Mouley and his 
four thousand wives seemed to people 
the shadows of the frowning walls. It 
was he who made Mequinez the most 
beautiful city of Morocco. Here he es- 
tablished his famous and dreaded “Black 
Guard,” whose descendants are every- 
where to be seen. Half the city is yet 
occupied by the remains of his palace, 
surrounded by immense gardens, in the 
midst of which stands a kind of fortress, 
reputed to contain the treasures of the 
Sultan. In his day slaves guarded this 
treasure, whose eyes were afterwards 
burned out or who were walled up in 
subterranean dungeons, the opening to 
one of which vawned close to our camp. 
Mequinez might be called the monu- 
ment to Mouley Ismael, the great con- 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
Photo by George EK. Holt 
MOROCCAN WOMEN OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAIN DISTRICT 
temporary of Louis XIV, who even 
dared sue for the hand of a daughter of 
the great French king. His mania for 
building is everywhere in evidence. For 
miles along the road leading to the quar- 
ries to the north great blocks of stone 
can still be seen lying, just as they fell 
from the hands of the slaves when they 
heard that their tyrant sovereign was. 
dead. But a melancholy interest is at- 
tached to these great buildings, for it 
must be remembered that hundreds of 
Christian slaves toiled and died on these 
gloomy walls. 
The population of the present city has. 
been estimated at about fifty thousand. 
The streets are wider and more even than 
those of Fez. The walls of the city are 
mounted by batteries to repulse the Ber- 
ber tribes, whose villages on the moun- 
tains are a constant menace to the peace 
of the city. Viewed from the hills to the 
north, lying on a slight elevation, sur- 
rounded by olive groves and little valleys 
and with the dark mountains in the dis- 
tant, it offers one of the most charming 
