The Chellah, Rabat, Morocco--March 2001

We handed over a few dirhams in the gloom under the great gate. Now we were in the gardens. The long white highway that baked its way from the centre of town disappeared into low rumbling, and the trees cast light-flecked shade across the gravel paths. These were the gardens of the Chellah, the ancient burial settlement that now borders Rabat, Morocco’s capital. Amongst the greenery, gardeners hopped and dug, trailing hoses as though they were weaving the plants out of the thick plastic. We moved away from the high wall surrounding the Chellah and plunged into the cool.
Each path seemed to lead to another precisely like it, and for a while there was no one around. We explored a strange damp world, quite unlike the scorching maze of Rabat. But we hadn’t just come for the gardens. Towards the south of the walled enclosure was the imperial burial ground, abandoned since the 12th century. The complex of buildings that make up the ruins is set low against the far wall of the enclosure, and it comes as some surprise as you emerge from the lush greenery stretching back up the hill. Here again the heat blasts down, and the buildings certainly look like they’ve been roasted for centuries. Brown and black with small dabs of ash white, they huddle in the glare, defeated by the passage of time but never yet broken. Although most of the structures are roofless, the walls are in good shape, with the rich carving characteristic of Moroccan architecture easily made out by the eye or hand. Over the whole group stands what remains of the minaret. It is tall by itself, but the crazy haircut of a stork’s nest adds on at least a metre. The proud homeowner stood preening in the dry breeze, casting a benevolent eye on the scorched vegetation at the base of the tower. In Morocco it’s considered good luck to have a stork nesting in one’s minaret – perhaps it draws all the untidiness up to live with it, thereby dispensing with the need for dusting.
You can’t rush up to the Chellah with wild abandon. It’s a very still place. You walk from room to room feeling barely present amid the walls. Every so often you see a ruined mihrab or cluster of graves. These were the emperors’ families, and their graves, like all Muslim graves are strangely evocative. The long stone over the grave itself is like an abstraction of the body below, while the pillar at the head bears witness with its inconsolable text.
We went out of the buildings and to another set of gardens on a lower level. Here, the living went about their afternoon stroll. Moroccan women and their families rambled amiably to and fro, while old men mused together in corners. The gardens went right up to the edge of the enclosure, where the wall was much lower than at the entrance. As ever when presented with something to nosy into, I stood on tiptoe to see over the edge. Beyond were a wide river and then the round side of a hill, thickly covered with barley. In Morocco, the city and the countryside are separated by sharper divisions than in England. Here, it was the sides of the river. Beside the tombs of the Merenids overlooking Fes, one turn of 180 degrees took you from looking at the huge torso of a city embracing an entire valley to an immense vista of olive groves stretching into the sunset.
We went back up into the burial ground. There were some people in there now, but very few of them, and we were rarely close enough to see their faces. We sat in the shade of a wall, looking at the guidebook and wondering what to do next. Then a group of teenagers crept into the broad space that had once been a room, and stopped, looking at us. In England or one of the other Moroccan cities we might have contemplated some high-speed escaping, but these yoofs gave off unthreatening vibes.
“Hello,” one of the boys said nervously. “Where are you from?”
“Nous sommes anglaises,” I replied.
“My friend would like to speak to you.”
“Bien sur. Qu’est-ce vous voulez?”
They were all very shy. The “friend” referred to was a girl of about seventeen, who managed “Hello,” and not a lot else.
I tried continuing in French, but the first boy said that his friend didn’t speak French. She wanted to try her English out. Anything to help, we said, feeling somewhat flattered. The girl was very quiet, but we managed a few pleasantries before her embarrassment got the better of her and they wandered off, thanking us and waving goodbye, even once they’d gone through the wide doorway at the end of the room.
The Chellah was not, however, simply a burial ground. It was also the southernmost settlement of the Roman Empire, and around the Islamic buildings were ruins of even greater vintage, from the Roman forum. There were the wide steps of a basilica, hidden among cacti and thick yellow grass. There were the roots of pillars gnashed by vines, and there was the great well. We could see three levels of stone sinking straight down into the earth. The plants reached up for the sky, but the gods in their niches sat impassively, disdaining the 21st century as much as the 12th. It was creepy to look down into that darkness while the sun blazed away overhead

Our encounter with the teenagers in the Chellah was typical of Rabat. Each of the four Moroccan cities had a different character. Casablanca was desperate and vicious, Marrakesh pushy and intense, and Fes boisterous and chaotic. Rabat oozed relaxation and diplomacy. As we sat in the park, people would walk or run past, and shout “Bienvenue a Maroc!”
Rabat is now the capital of Morocco, but was once destined for imperial greatness, like Marrakesh and Fes. The huge mosque built on the riverside east of the city would have been the second biggest in the world, had it been completed, suitable for a city of 100,000 people. Unfortunately, fewer than 100 families lived there at the time. They were mainly gathered up on the fortified promontory into the Mediterranean, the Kasbah. This place of blue clustered buildings is so completely different from the hot sense-assault of the souks (traditional markets) in Marrakesh and Fes that when you’re in the one it’s hard to imagine the other. The buildings are like domes and the streets between much cooler than outside. Each wall is blue up to waist height, and then gleaming white, so that you feel like you’re walking through a pool. As in the Chellah, the people appear and disappear so quickly you feel like you’re alone.
We found a bar and had a drink, accompanied by some very nice sweet crunchy things, while we looked at the view of the sea. Then we went wandering again. At the very top of the Kasbah was a flat grey space, roughly tarmacked and desolate. It looked out over the sea and the beach. The sea breeze was welcome, but the beach was a bit of a shock. It was completely full of young men who went about their bathing with serious expressions. The sense of intimidation washed up to us, and it wasn’t long before we retreated to the coolness of the Kasbah, and then the friendly faces of the main city.