Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1902 — A Moorish City. [ARTICLE]

A Moorish City.

The sun never touches the ground in Fez, except in a few isolated spaces, owing to the narrow streets, the height of houses, and the habit of stretching trellises covered with vines across from side to side. The consequence is that its naturally dark-skinned citizens, being rarely exposed to the full light of day, have complexions resembling partially decomposed potato sprouts In a dark cellar. The so-called streets run in straight lines the entire length of the town, and are all paved with round stones the size of cocoanuts, worn smooth by the tread of generations of slippered feet. As these lanes are never sw T ept, and every householder throws his slops and refuse out of doors, one must pick his way with exceeding care. The Wed el Jubai (“River of Pearls”) divides the city into two parts, the new and the old. The “River of Pearls” is fordable in every part, the resort of every four-footed and two-legged beast in the place; it receives all the drainage of the city, and is the general source of the drinking-water supply.—Detroit Free Press.