"Should you like to see the Chleuh boys dance?" some one asked.

"There they are," another of our companions added, pointing to a dense
ring of spectators on one side of the immense dusty square at the
entrance of the _souks_--the "Square of the Dead" as it is called, in
memory of the executions that used to take place under one of its grim
red gates.

It is the square of the living now, the centre of all the life,
amusement and gossip of Marrakech, and the spectators are so thickly
packed about the story-tellers, snake-charmers and dancers who frequent
it that one can guess what is going on within each circle only by the
wailing monologue or the persistent drum-beat that proceeds from it.

Ah, yes--we should indeed like to see the Chleuh boys dance, we who,
since we had been in Morocco, had seen no dancing, heard no singing,
caught no single glimpse of merry-making! But how were we to get within
sight of them?

On one side of the "Square of the Dead" stands a large house, of
European build, but modelled on Oriental lines: the office of the French
municipal administration. The French Government no longer allows its
offices to be built within the walls of Moroccan towns, and this house
goes back to the epic days of the Caïd Sir Harry Maclean, to whom it was
presented by the fantastic Abd-el-Aziz when the Caïd was his favourite
companion as well as his military adviser.

At the suggestion of the municipal officials we mounted the stairs and
looked down on the packed square. There can be no more Oriental sight
this side of the Atlas and the Sahara. The square is surrounded by low