Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/172

156 which marks of respect the saints responded by a touch of the hand on the heads that bent before them.

Though in the streets of Fez the inhabitants seem to have little curiosity in a passing European and even the beggars seldom ask alms of him, here in the Medina it was quite otherwise, for within this sacred enclosure a white man is looked upon with hostility, contempt and hate. It is not at all unusual to be greeted here with inimical words and vicious remarks.

Once well within the barrier we stopped near a temple wall, just beside a large box for the offerings of the Faithful. The crowd observed us in silence and with such expressions in their eyes that it was easy to sense the presence of suppressed feeling. We put some silver coins in the box and took post at a little distance to watch for a moment the passing stream. A few slightly propitiated voices were heard in the crowd, where many discreetly elbowed their neighbors, as they indicated us with their eyes for a moment and then passed on. There was only one who stared at me so persistently that I was finally compelled to turn in his direction and scrutinize him most carefully. At first I took him to be a woman, for he showed a pale, blanched face without a hair on it, fiery eyes, narrow, compressed lips, a slender figure shrouded in a black bournous, small, pampered hands and feet shod in European shoes. After taking in these features at a glance, I again sought the eyes of my close observer.

"A strange face with not one Arab feature," I mused to myself. At the same moment the small man lowered his gaze, pulled the bournous further over his face and