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WHITE SWANS ON AN AZURE SHORE
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lowing morning. As we left the citadel, he gave us as guide an Arab spahi from Algeria to accompany us through the town. Although there in Safi Islam approaches Europe in a more intimate and willing contact than probably at any other point in Morocco and profits by bank credits, post, telegraph and telephone in a most marked degree, it was neither the frequent evidences of this intermingling of the two civilizations nor the contrast of the fortress of Dar el-Behar and its black cannon with the homes and streets of the Berbers or the pottery suk with its many-colored wares that arrested our attention, but rather the life of the bazaars and market-places that again established its sway over us. In one of the squares we found, in addition to the singers and jugglers with whom we had become familiar in Marrakesh and Fez, a good-looking young Berber with an expressive, laughing face and thick curly hair who was playing the part of a clown or town fool.

"He is a Draa," observed the spahi with contempt, "half Berber and half Negro."

Meanwhile the unperturbed Draa was holding forth in a manner which the interpretation of our spahi gave us to understand was a flood of satirical humor against all society around him. He spoke of the hypocrites whom one meets throughout the waking hours of every day—launching his jests at Imams who fulfil the law of the Koran by having only one wife, but maintain a whole bevy of beautiful slaves; mocking mokkhadems, who hoodwink the Faithful by every known means; laughing at the so-called wise men, who were deep in the sciences but yet understood not the simplest of ordinary matters;