[Illustration: FRUIT MARKET, MARRAKESH]
The Elhara or leper quarter is just outside one of the city gates, and
after some effort of will, I conquered my repugnance and rode within its
gate. The place proved to be a collection of poverty-stricken hovels built
in a circle, of the native tapia, which was crumbling to pieces through
age and neglect. Most of the inhabitants were begging in the city, where
they are at liberty to remain until the gates are closed, but there were a
few left at home, and I had some difficulty in restraining the keeper
of Elhara, who wished to parade the unfortunate creatures before me that I
might not miss any detail of their sufferings. Leper women peeped out from
corners, as Boubikir's "house" had done; little leper children played
merrily enough on the dry sandy ground, a few donkeys, covered with scars
and half starved, stood in the scanty shade. In a deep cleft below the
outer wall women and girls, very scantily clad, were washing clothes in a
pool that is reserved apparently for the use of the stricken village. I
was glad to leave the place behind me, after giving the unctuous keeper a
gift for the sufferers that doubtless never reached them.
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