IV
THE AGDAL
One of the Almohad Sultans who, during their hundred years of empire,
scattered such great monuments from Seville to the Atlas, felt the need
of coolness about his southern capital, and laid out the olive-yards of
the Agdal.
To the south of Marrakech the Agdal extends for many acres between the
outer walls of the city and the edge of the palm-oasis--a continuous
belt of silver foliage traversed by deep red lanes, and enclosing a
wide-spreading summer palace and two immense reservoirs walled with
masonry, and the vision of these serene sheets of water, in which the
olives and palms are motionlessly reflected, is one of the most poetic
impressions in that city of inveterate poetry.
On the edge of one of the reservoirs a sentimental Sultan built in the
last century a little pleasure-house called the Menara. It is composed
of a few rooms with a two-storied loggia looking across the water to the
palm-groves, and surrounded by a garden of cypresses and orange-trees.
The Menara, long since abandoned, is usually uninhabited, but on the
day when we drove through the Agdal we noticed, at the gate, a group of
well-dressed servants holding mules with embroidered saddle-clothes.
The French officer who was with us asked the porter what was going on,
and he replied that the Chief of the Guild of Wool-Merchants had hired
the pavilion for a week and invited a few friends to visit him. They
were now, the porter added, taking tea in the loggia above the lake, and
the host, being informed of our presence, begged that we should do him
and his friends the honour of visiting the pavilion.
In reply to this amiable invitation we crossed an empty saloon
surrounded with divans and passed out onto the loggia where the
wool-merchant and his guests were seated. They were evidently persons of
consequence: large bulky men wrapped in fresh muslins and reclining side
by side on muslin-covered divans and cushions. Black slaves had placed
before them brass trays with pots of mint-tea, glasses in filigree
stands, and dishes of gazelles' horns and sugar-plums, and they sat
serenely absorbing these refreshments and gazing with large calm eyes
upon the motionless water and the reflected trees.
So, we were told, they would probably spend the greater part of their
holiday. The merchant's cooks had taken possession of the kitchens, and
toward sunset a sumptuous repast of many courses would be carried into
the saloon on covered trays, and the guests would squat about it on rugs
of Rabat, tearing with their fingers the tender chicken wings and small
artichokes cooked in oil, plunging their fat white hands to the wrist
into huge mounds of saffron and rice, and washing off the traces of each
course in the brass basin of perfumed water carried about by a young
black slave-girl with hoop-earrings and a green-and-gold scarf about her
hips.
Then the singing-girls would come out from Marrakech, squat round-faced
young women heavily hennaed and bejewelled, accompanied by gaunt
musicians in bright caftans; and for hours they would sing sentimental
or obscene ballads to the persistent maddening twang of violin and flute
and drum. Meanwhile fiery brandy or sweet champagne would probably be
passed around between the steaming glasses of mint-tea which the slaves
perpetually refilled; or perhaps the sultry air, the heavy meal, the
scent of the garden and the vertiginous repetition of the music would
suffice to plunge these sedentary worthies into the delicious coma in
which every festive evening in Morocco ends.
The next day would be spent in the same manner, except that probably the
Chleuh boys with sidelong eyes and clean caftans would come instead of
the singing-girls, and weave the arabesque of their dance in place of
the runic pattern of the singing. But the result would always be the
same: a prolonged state of obese ecstasy culminating in the collapse of
huge heaps of snoring muslin on the divans against the wall. Finally at
the week's end the wool-merchant and his friends would all ride back
with dignity to the bazaar.
