"Try the souk, the open-air marketplace in the ancient walled area of the city," advised my host, Rina Jaquith. A former Kansas fam girl who now lives with her doctor husband, Clifford, in this city of 1.5 million, she was a reader of my walk in Capper's Weekly (which they received here) and had invited me to stay with them over the Christmas season.

So, off I went to the Djemma Elfna at the end of the city's main drag, Mohammed V. And, sure enough, there were all our Moslem neighbors--along with sword dancers, snake charmers, mule-pulled carts of produce, and innumerable hawkers beseeching everyone all in their Arabic and French languages to "Make price, my friends! Make price!"

But, alas, there were the "leeches," too. These are the men who attach themselves to nearly every tourist with a ferociousness that is downright criminal. They alone have probably driven more foreigners out of this kingdom than all the wars, pestilences, and homesicknesses combined.

No sooner was my "rich American tourist" blonde hair observed than I was rushed at from all sides. And since poverty is so rampant--and money so scarce for the average Moroccan--there was no way these fellows were going to easily surrender my attention. In less than a minute I had everything from human teeth to curved daggers to jars filled with dead flies (to be drunk in tea as an aphrodisiac) shoved at my face. Scream as I might "No! No! No!," or "I don't want this!", they only pressed closer and clawed at me all the more.

I felt as if I was caught in a thorn bush, with a few hundred snakes thrown in for good measure. Out of desperation, I thrust a silvery dirham coin into the palm of a young innocent-eyed boy and begged him in caveman French to lead me tp a place where the market was more than writhing arms and spitting, hissing heads.

With the bravery of a saint, the wiry little lad grabbed my hand and, pushing aside beggers and foul-breathed camels, pulled me deep into a sunless maze of of alleyways that would have confounded Rubik himself. Slowly the leeches lost their grips and dropped away, until there was only the boy, me--and the Devil!

"Ooohhh...English or American?" crooned the tall, black salesman, flashing a mouth of gold and rubbing together fingers as long as dollar bills.

Incredible! Somehow I'd picked the sharpest hustler of the whole bunch, and I'd allowed myself to be led into the belly of a souvenir shop that had more expensive junk in one room than Macy's or Sak's 5th Avenue has in a dozen.

"You can pay in pounds or in dollars also, if you wish," the suave salesman kept reminding me, as he piled everything I dared even glance at into a large pile. How, I lamented mentally, do you explain to a possessed man that there is no way I am going to carry four hundred pounds of rugs, leather purses, brass teapots and candlesticks on my back for the next twelve thousand miles of my walk?

When he tried to drag me upstairs to show me even more items, I dived back into the marketplace and fled back to Mohammed V. And tagging alongside me were the leeches, dropping their prices several more dirhams for every stride I put between myself and their turf. One frantic man even offered his curved daggers for 40 dirhams ($6) a pair, instead of the 150 dirhams eachhe he'd said was such a good buy only one-half hour earlier.

At last I reached the barbed wire-topped steel gates of the Jaquith residence, and I was able to shut the leeches out. In my hosts' apartment I collapsed onto a kitchen chair. I was utterly exhausted, and I felt as if I was suffering from combat shock.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" Mrs. Jaquith asked with a knowing smile.

"It was h-hectic," I sighed, "but there were a lot of things being sold, and I was able to bargain and get some excellent buys." Then, like some little boy, I heaved my knapsack onto the table and showed her the knives, the teeth, the flies..."

Steven