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238 if the tropical rains do not wash off the synthetic dyes.

On our way back to the palace where the office of Monsieur Delarue was located, we stopped for a moment before an orchestra composed of Arab violins, mandolins, guitars, flutes and the omnipresent drum. When they began playing, the sounds proved so discordant and so lacking in all melody that Zofiette cried out, according to the established customs of the Moslem:

"In the name of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Bach, Mendelssohn, Wieniawski; in the name of Rozycki, Szymanowski, Szopski, Niewiadomski and Rogowski; in the name of all wali and ulema of music let us fly!"

When we reached the administrative building, Monsieur Delarue was awaiting us with the car to take us to see Dar el-Makhzen, the palace of the sultan. Once a year the head of the state comes to Marrakesh to collect taxes and receive homage from the mountain tribes. With its great area the palace reminds one of the vast ruins of Mulay Ismail in Meknes, though there are no ruins here. In the large outer court the Sultan receives the chieftains of the mountain tribes and addresses them from a small balcony. Another court is given over to the palace slaves, who are for the most part black, owing to the long-established preference of the Alawite dynasty for Negroes and Arabs rather than for the more warlike, independent and unreliable Berbers.

The great fruit-plantation of Aguedal stretches far away behind the walls of the palace. From the rich yield of its olive-, orange-, pomegranate-, fig-, lemon- and apricot-trees Glawi, the Bashaw of Marrakesh and the powerful feudal prince of the Atlas, yearly receives great