a fringe of thunder to the south. Then the vapours lifted, and we saw
below us another red plain with an island of palms in its centre.
Mysteriously, from the heart of the palms, a tower shot up, as if alone
in the wilderness, behind it stood the sun-streaked cliffs of the Atlas,
with snow summits appearing and vanishing through the storm.

As we drove downward the rock gradually began to turn to red earth
fissured by yellow streams, and stray knots of palms sprang up, lean and
dishevelled, about well-heads where people were watering camels and
donkeys. To the east, dominating the oasis, the twin peaked hills of the
Ghilis, fortified to the crest, mounted guard over invisible Marrakech;
but still, above the palms, we saw only that lonely and triumphant
tower.

Presently we crossed the Oued Tensif on an old bridge built by Moroccan
engineers. Beyond the river were more palms, then olive-orchards, then
the vague sketch of the new European settlement, with a few shops and
cafés on avenues ending suddenly in clay pits, and at last Marrakech
itself appeared to us, in the form of a red wall across a red
wilderness.

We passed through a gate and were confronted by other ramparts. Then we
entered an outskirt of dusty red lanes bordered by clay hovels with
draped figures slinking by like ghosts. After that more walls, more
gates, more endlessly winding lanes, more gates again, more turns, a
dusty open space with donkeys and camels and negroes; a final wall with
a great door under a lofty arch--and suddenly we were in the palace of
the Bahia, among flowers and shadows and falling water.