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Rh watch-towers against the orange-red background of the evening sky.

Meknes is really the center of a plateau, some fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and is partially surrounded by the northern range of the Middle Atlas and by the complementing ranges of Nador, Zerhun and Tselfat, with the rivers Fekrana and Rdom crossing the plateau in deep ravines. It was on the left bank of the first of these that the early Meknassa leaders traced the outlines of the town, but it was the bloody tyrant, Mulay Ismail, who gave to it its present appearance.

On the day of our arrival we were invited to dine with the civil administrator and virtual controller of French policies in the whole of the Sultan's possessions. Monsieur Maurice Halmagrand. During this and many other delightful evenings that we spent with Monsieur and Madame Halmagrand we met other members of the French administrative staff and gathered much valuable information that greatly assisted me in my later observations and studies, as our host was not only scrupulously conscientious in the performance of his official duties but was also a close and highly trained student of the country and the people.

In our many visits to all parts of the town under the able guidance of a Polish member of the Foreign Legion we found little in its buildings and general life to distinguish it from Fez and other Moroccan cities, until our long-resident cicerone pointed out to us that Meknes possesses a unique feature in the character of its population by reason of the fact that it is located at the intersection of two great routes, the one from Fez to the Atlantic and