CITY OF THE PAST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1939, Page 8

CITY OF THE PAST

THE FASCINATING STREETS OF FEZ LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. I TRIAL OF MOULAY HASSAN. ' One of the most dramatic trials of recent times, so dramatic that the well-known writer Colette has been assigned by a Paris newspaper to report the proceedings, is taking place at Fez, the capital of Morocco, where Moulay Hassan, ex-dancer, is on trial for the murder of four people. The trial of Moulay Hassan is being held in a setting as curious as is to be found anywhere in the world, for Fez is a city of the past living in the present. Fez covers two low hills that slope down to one another, and when the visitor stands on the top of- the Djemail Palace and looks over the flat-roofed city with its hundred and twenty minarets he is looking over a city of which the aspect has not changed in five centuries. He finds, too, on walking its narrow streets, that its people also have not changed in their ways since the Middle Ages. Streets is perhaps too generous a name for the bewildering, narrow alleways that turn and twist in all directions and are so dense that, unless with a guide, the visitor would be lost within a hundred yards of his hotel. But where in the world can one find such fascinating streets? Although narrow, the sun comes slanting down into the rabbit-warren of Fez, and it is impossible to resist the temptation to go on and on, round this corner, through that narrow gateway, to see where this leads to or that alley takes one. Here one walks in scenes of the Arabian Nights, delighted by the strange shapes of everything, the Moorish doorways, the little grated windows that jut out like lanterns over the door, windows of the harem through which the imprisoned wife of an Arab merchant can peep without being seen. Streets shoot off from small open spaces no biger than a drawing room.

What a place for colour! Women are there in every stret, with faces veiled to the eyes, veiled in this capital of Mahomedan Morocco so that one eye only can be seen, their white dresses clothing them from head to feet relieved by blue or orange or gold embroidery A cry of “Balek!” (mind!), and through an arch comes an Arab on his grey horse, his red Morocco leather boots thrust into gorgeous stirrups of worked brass. The grey walls of the houses seem drab indeed, until through an open doorway we catch a glimpse of a floor of small square mosaics of black and white and red and blue, and inside, if we are lucky enough to get an invitation, we find ourselves in the patio, with its richly worked columns and cool fountain in the centre, and divans of rugs and cushions. But the strange streets are calling us, crowded so that at no moment is one alone but always with Arabs pressing round us but taking no notice of us. Here is a wooden gate that shuts off a quarter of iihe city, behind which at night the porter lies stretched on rushes. Matting spreads overhead like a safety net in a circus, serving to attenuate the rays of the sun. We are reminded again that we are in the Middle Ages, for every trade has its own quarter. This is the street where the women come to buy linen, and this other street is filled with grocers’ shops, with the grocer perched high up, with crossed legs, a yard above the counter, facing the street. From this height he stretches upwards or- downwards to grasp a handful of red beans or spices and weigh them in the copper scales in his other hand. A clanging comes from the next street, where all the coppersmiths are, and they are banging at their wares with hammers shaped exactly as are those wielded by the strange people figured on the tombs of Egypt. And yet we are only four days from London.