Identifier: tafiletnarrative00harr (find matches)
Title: Tafilet; the narrative of a journey of exploration in the Atlas mountains and the oases of the north-west Sahara
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Harris, Walter, 1866-1933
Subjects:
Publisher: London, W. Blackwood and sons
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston University

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throuo-h thiscity. The residential part of the town is divided intoseveral districts, separated from each other by openspaces, or by streets of shops. Just as in Europe,there are the fashionable and unfashionable quarters,the Medina or city being perhaps the most soughtafter. So largely does fashion hold sway over thepeople, that the rents of houses of equal size only afew hundred yards away from one another vary oftenfifty per cent, a palace in the district of Bab Dukala not bringing anything like so large a sum as a minutehouse in the Medina. It was in the latter that Iresided during my stay, in the house of Sid Abu Bekrel Ghanjaui, who owns very considerable property allover the city, and particularly in this neighbourhood.The houses here are high, and, like most Moorishresidences, have but few windows looking towardsthe street, one and all possessing central courts on 32 MAEAKESH. to which the rooms open. But even in respect ofwindows Morocco City is different to Fez, for whereas
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A Street in Marakesh, in the latter from the streets one sees but few, andthose generally closely barred, in Marakesh they are THE KASBA. 33 in considerably larger numbers, though, as I stated above, by no means general. After the Medina —the trading quarter—the Kasba is the most important. This district, the residence of the Government, and which contains thepalace, is separated from the remainder of the townby walls, much resembling those that encircle the city, but higher and in better repair. Nor do the houses reach to this wall, for between the city properand the Kasba are large open spaces and manygardens, adding a most picturesque effect to this quarter. These gardens for the most part are walled,and as a rule only the tree-tops, amongst them the handsome cypress and date-palm, are visible, while the minarets beyond cap the scene. One enters the Kasba through the handsomestone gate of which I have already made mention,and of which tradition says the stones were broughtfrom Spain,

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