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TANGIERS IIQ
ing toward the city gate, expectantly. At the upper-
most end of the market-place was a house whose flat
roof was crowded with people, European settlers most
of them. There was to be a parade I was told and
accordingly purchased a ticket of admission to the
grand stand on the roof.
An orange yellow banner came out from under the
market gate. I could see the crowd milling in the
gateway and hear a confused and distant racket. The
market-place rises to the point which we occupied; the
gate is about a thousand feet away.
The sun burned hotly and the heat of the flat
asphalt roof seered your feet through the soles of
your shoes; an hour had passed and I was beginning to
think of going home. Suddenly the music emerged
more distinctly—it was a deep boom! boom! which
pounded away with a dense pertinacity as a clarinet
shrilly embroidered it with a long irritating wail that
rose and faintly fell, with no pauses for breath. It
drilled its way into your ear monotonously and cease-
lessly like the zoom of an importunate gnat.
The noise became more distinct; it seemed to me
there was dancing with savage gestures and that I
could see the onlookers being dispersed on one side or
the other, retreating with yells.
The crowd would advance, then halt, then dance for
a long time. Now and again I could see something
dart forth and gleam in the air as a naked, smooth-
shaven cranium rose high above the swarm and disap-
peared again.
Again an advance and again a stop. An ivory yel-
low skull rose in the air, disappeared; a gleaming flash
had darted across it as the skull was at its highest
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