It was as if the Kasba called to him after the sophisticated luxury of the Casino.
He knew well the narrow alleys that were so dark at times that a pedestrian was compelled to feel his way, and in them the men and women in their native costumes were buying, selling, eating, sleeping, praying and gambling. All in the tiny confined spaces of their booths where they sold jewels and silver, carpets and leather goods and the more primitive requirements of an uncivilised people.
He knew the smell there would be of heavy Arab perfume thick with musk, of the strange dishes fried in the open, of smoke from incense drifting through the airless bazaar and the dry acid scent of the desert that seemed to come from the people themselves.
In his imagination it all seemed to welcome him, but he knew th
