Show ROMANTIC HOUR IN DESERT dawn the only time tima ahn sordidness of the country Is hidden from the eye one day before sunrise we set out from rabat for the ruins of roman Volu bills from the lie ferry ol of the dou gregreg we looked backward on a list last vision of 0 orange ramparts under a night blue sky sprinkled with stars ahead over gardens still deep in shadow the walls 0 of sale were passing from drab to peach color in the eastern glow dawn da Is the romantic hour in africa dirt and dilapidation disappear under a pearly haze and a breeze from the sea blows away the memory of fetid markets and sordid beads of humanity at that hour the old moroccan cities boon look boon like the ivory citadel in a persian miniature and the fat shopkeepers riding out to tapir gardens lile lil e princea i sallying forth to rescue captive maidens our ruail road led along the high road irom from rabat to the modern port of xe ke nitra near the ruins of the phoenician colony of edvia just north of cenitra we struck the trail branching off eastward to a european village on the light railway between rabat and fez beyond the railway sheds and flat roofed stores the wilderness began stretching away into clear distances distance bounded by the hills of barb above which the sun was rising range kange after range these translucent hills rose before us nil all around the solitude was complete village life and even tent life naturally gathers about a river bank or spring and tho the waste we were crossing was of 0 water waterless wa leso sand bound together by a loose desert growth only an abandoned well ceib hero here and there cast its blue shadow on the yellow bled or a saints tomb hung like a bubble between sky and sand the light tin had the preternatural purity which gives a foretaste of mirage it was the light in which magic becomes real and which helps to under understand tand how to people living in such an atmosphere atmo phere the boundary between fact and dream perpetually petua lly fluctuates edith wharton in scribners |