Not long ago the gates between the different quarters of the city used
to be locked every night at nine o'clock, and the merchant who went out
to dine in another part of the town had to lodge with his host. Now this
custom has been given up, and one may roam about untroubled through the
old quarters, grown as silent as the grave after the intense life of the
bazaars has ceased at nightfall.

Nobody is in the streets wandering from ghostly passage to passage, one
hears no step but that of the watchman with staff and lantern. Presently
there appears, far off, a light like a low-flying firefly, as it comes
nearer, it is seen to proceed from the _Mellah_ lamp of open-work brass
that a servant carries ahead of two merchants on their way home from
Elbali. The merchants are grave men, they move softly and slowly on
their fat slippered feet, pausing from time to time in confidential
talk. At last they stop before a house wall with a low blue door barred
by heavy hasps of iron. The servant lifts the lamp and knocks. There is
a long delay, then, with infinite caution, the door is opened a few
inches, and another lifted light shines faintly on lustrous tiled walls,
and on the face of a woman slave who quickly veils herself. Evidently
the master is a man of standing, and the house well guarded. The two
merchants touch each other on the right shoulder, one of them passes in,
and his friend goes on through the moonlight, his servant's lantern
dancing ahead.

But here we are in an open space looking down one of the descents to El
Attarine. A misty radiance washes the tall houses, the garden-walls, the
archways, even the moonlight does not whiten Fez, but only turns its
gray to tarnished silver. Overhead in a tower window a single light
twinkles: women's voices rise and fall on the roofs. In a rich man's
doorway slaves are sleeping, huddled on the tiles. A cock crows from