There was no need to be uneasy, for he
drew himself up to his full height, made a hissing noise in his throat,
and spat fiercely at my shadow. Then he returned to the stricken donkeys,
and the keeper of the fandak, coming out to welcome me, saw his more
worthy visitor. Turning from me with "Marhababik" ("You are welcome") just
off his lips, he ran forward and kissed the hem of the madman's djellaba.
A madman is very often an object of veneration in Morocco, for his brain
is in divine keeping, while his body is on the earth. And yet the Moor is
not altogether logical in his attitude to the "afflicted of Allah." While
so much liberty is granted to the majority of the insane that feigned
madness is quite common among criminals in the country, less fortunate men
who have really become mentally afflicted, but are not recognised as
insane, are kept chained to the walls of the Marstan--half hospital, half
prison--that is attached to the most great mosques. I have been assured
that they suffer considerably at the hands of most gaoler-doctors, whose
medicine is almost invariably the stick, but I have not been able to
verify the story, which is quite opposed to Moorish tradition.
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