Brought on camels through Dukala and R'hamna to Marrakesh, they were left
to fill up the countless rooms without care or arrangement, though their
owner's house must hold more than fifty women, without counting servants.
Probably when they were not quarrelling or dying their finger nails, or
painting their faces after a fashion that is far from pleasing to European
eyes, the ladies of the hareem passed their days lying on cushions,
playing the gimbri[40] or eating sweetmeats.
In one room on the ground-floor there was a great collection of
mechanical toys. Sidi Boubikir explained that the French Commercial
Attache had brought a large number to the Sultan's palace, and that my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz had rejected the ones before us. With the curious
childish simplicity that is found so often among the Moors of high
position, Boubikir insisted upon winding up the clock-work apparatus of
nearly all the toys. Then one doll danced, another played a drum, a third
went through gymnastic exercises, and the toy orchestra played the
Marseillaise, while from every adjacent room veiled figures stole out
cautiously, as though this room in a Moorish house were a stage and the
shrouded visitors were the chorus entering mysteriously from unexpected
places.
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