Leaving a garden on the left, surrounded by a high tapia wall, we crossed

a little streamlet into the brook which waters the valley, and reached at

last a corner surrounded with grey olives, deep in lush grass, and

overlooked by the inevitable quaint white-domed saint-house on the top of

a rocky hillock. It was an ideal spot. Omar and Saïd laid their two guns

under a tree (they rode with them across their knees, ancient

flint-locks, and carried bullets in bags at their sides, Omar possessing

a French rifle as well); we off-saddled, unloaded the two men's mules,

and unpacked what there was to unpack, the camel having practically

everything. R. and I strolled about and photographed. A countryman

brought us three fowls and some eggs. The sun set. Still the wretched

camel had not come. Dew fell heavily, and Omar made a famous fire and

supplied us with hot green tea. At last there were voices; a great form

loomed in the darkness and swung towards us; the donkey followed. It was

not long before the camel was unloaded, our big tent up, table and chairs

and beds put together, and though dinner was late it was the more

acceptable, The Saint proving a chef. A pannierful of bread was part of

the camel's luggage, and intended to last us until we got to Marrakesh:

vegetables we had in plenty for the first two or three days. And Omar

worked wonders with the means at his disposal. Early we turned in: the

stars were out; the frogs croaked in the streamlets. With the tent-flap

tied back, and looking out into the quiet night, we slept as sound as

tramps on the roadside at home.

I woke at 2 a.m. The guard had stopped talking, and were all asleep and

snoring round the tents, except one old greybeard, who was sitting up by

the fire. Four Ain-el-Hadger men had come to act as guard for the night,

bringing their guns and long knives with them. It was oddly light--the

"false dawn" of Omar Khayy[=a]m; but there were no stars.

[Illustration: OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER.

[_To face p. 290._]

Such a dawn woke us at five! Every bird for miles around was singing:

blackbirds sounded like England, wood-pigeons cooed, cuckoos insisted,

and among them all, strange and Indian, a hoopoe called. The sun climbed

up behind the saint-house and solitary palm; the olives began to cast

shadows; the grass was silver with dew. We breakfasted soon after six,

our table out on the green lawn. Such air and scents of moist earth! It

was chilly too. The mules fed busily in the long wet grass; behind the

kitchen-tent the camel lay, chewing; an old sheikh turned up on a donkey,

and joined the servants at breakfast round the fire, at one of those

meals which were all green tea and tobacco.

Just as we were starting a party of fifteen sheikhs and countrymen rode

up on their way to a distant "powder play" at the fête of some saint, two

days' journey off. Passing our camp, they turned into a little

three-cornered field of much poppies and little corn, and proceeded to

bivouac for an hour or two. Tailing one after another through a gap in

the hedge, on the finest barbs Southern Morocco can produce, heavy, but

handsome in their way (particularly a white with flowing mane and tail,

and two iron-greys), they pulled up underneath some dense green

fig-trees, and dismounted in the shade, leaving their scarlet cloth

saddles to match the poppies.

There was colour running riot indeed. Several of the stately figures, all

in white, walked up to the saint-house to pray: one great man waddled

down to the stream (to be great is to be fat, in Morocco), and a few

began to groom their horses. The guns were piled: the sun glinted on them

and on the silver-chased stirrups, and blazed on the snowy garments, on

the poppies, and the saddles, one of which was blue, another yellow. We

were in the land of Arabs: the Berbers were left behind at Mogador, and

these tall lean horsemen, burnt coffee-coloured, were all descendants of

the sons of the desert.

By this time the camp was scattered: the camel had risen from its knees

and paced off under its medley load some time before, attended by Mulai

Ombach, Mohammed, and the donkey.

The Ain-el-Hadger guard had each received a trifle for his night's

services; Saïd had groomed and brought up our mules; we mounted, and,

followed by himself and Omar, perched on the top of the two packs, their

guns sticking out at one side, rode away. The first few miles were not

marked by anything of particular interest: the collections of huts and

bare walls which sometimes adorned the hillsides were far away; the

curious piles of stones in the fields, almost like scarecrows, were only

landmarks. But after a time we rode into the country of the argan-tree,

that most interesting and unique specimen, which flourishes in this

corner of Morocco, covering an area about two hundred miles long and

forty wide, and growing nowhere else in the known world. Southern Morocco

would be lost indeed without argan oil, which is used for cooking

purposes as a substitute for butter, and of which we had with us a large

supply. The oil is extracted from the fruit of the tree: at the end of

March it should be fit to gather, looking much like a large olive, and

possessed of a green fleshy husk, greedily eaten by camels, goats, sheep,

and oxen. Thus, as well as gathering the nuts themselves off the ground,

the country people allow their flocks to feed upon the fruit: having

driven them home, the animals chew the cud, disgorging the argan nuts,

which are collected, and eventually cracked by women and children in

order to obtain oil.

The average height of the tree is twenty-five feet, but its rugged side

branches will cover a space of seventy feet. Gnarled and twisted, the

bark is a little like crocodile-skin, and forms in squares: the trunk has

a way of folding upon itself, too, as it grows--slowly; for a large tree

may be three hundred years old, and in consequence its wood is immensely

hard. The argan is more or less tropical: though a tree has been known to

live against a south wall in England, it was killed by the first severe

winter.

Among the argans, little oxen were ploughing the red rich soil of the

vale through which we rode; it was watered by a brook, and real hedges of

pomegranate, out in brilliant flower, divided the fields. In one of these

some Arabs were digging carrots; in another homely potatoes, the first we

had seen, were doing remarkably well.

By this time the camel and attendants had been overtaken and left far

behind, and since we had passed our heavy baggage no other forms of life

seemed to be travelling along the same trail as our own: certainly a

countryman joined himself to us, partly to point out our direction,

partly for the sake of company; he held his stick behind his shoulders

and stepped out well, but not for long. And after he had left we only saw

a few women in the distance. These were often on donkeys, and some

carried water-pots on their heads; but not one of them was "a beast of

burden" in the sense of the women round Tetuan--not one crouched under an

overpowering load of faggots or charcoal.

As we jogged on, the great barley-fields, all in ear, though still green,

might have led us to believe we were in England, except that in the next

sheltered spot a white saint-house would be found, with its dome and its

palm-tree, perhaps a shady olive grove, allowed to flourish for the sake

of the holy place. Yes, it was Africa.

Farther on, an Arab village lay close to the track, no windows in its

yellowish flat walls, apparently no roofs: a stoned arched entrance was

filled up with thorn-bushes, and the tops of the walls piled with the

same to prevent outsiders from molesting the inmates. This warlike

tendency was again shown in another watch-tower, built, like the last, at

the conjunction of two valleys.

Meanwhile, the bare and uninteresting-looking Iron Mountains were

disappearing from view: another ridge, which met them at right angles,

spotted with argan-trees, looked in the distance like a tea or coffee

plantation on Eastern hills--that too faded from sight; and we rode

on--now through a blaze of flowers, for every hedge flamed pink and

yellow, and even the dry thorns were blotted with colour--now past fields

of mauve poppies and scarlet poppies and stretches of stainless blue. A

white saint-house stood out against the colour, its dome like dazzling

chalk, it shadows blue: we looked back at it from under an argan-tree, in

the shade of which we rested for ten minutes, picking up a few nuts, and

drinking long and deep out of Omar's stone water-jar.

Not far from this spot we came upon _Sok-el-Had_ (the Sunday

Market)--that is, a place where every Sunday a country market is held,

and to which the whole countryside flocks to do its marketing. This was

Tuesday, and therefore Sok-el-Had was forlorn and deserted, its rows of

little mud huts and its meat-hangers empty, not a soul within miles. They

are as old as Morocco, these places known by the name of the week-day on

which the market is held--places so strangely deserted upon any other

day.

Still we rode on for several hours, past Sheikh Boujiman Ben Hamed's

white house, while the sun blazed on the bare path, and the argans stood

too far apart to cast consecutive shade. It was with much satisfaction

that we saw our next camping-ground in the distance about one o'clock: we

had started early, and a long lazy afternoon was a good prospect.

_Sok-el-Tleta_ is named once more after its market--Tuesday Market. Even

as Sok-el-Had was forlorn, so Sok-el-Tleta in proportion teemed with

life. Held on the open hillside, upon a great bare space worn brown by

cycles of Tuesday markets, the prevailing colour brown and white,

hundreds of mules, hundreds of Arabs, the sight was one not to be

forgotten.

We dismounted, and followed Omar into the thick of the fray, surrounded

at once by a staring and interested crowd. It was an extraordinary scene.

Streets were formed by rows upon rows of little mud cubicles, thatched

over, inside which, on a mud shelf, the vendor sat, with his goods spread

out for sale round him. Slippers were being mended; blacksmith's work was

being done; cottons and stuffs were selling, sugar, groceries of all

sorts, brand-new slippers and new clothes, vegetables and meat. Meat was

the centre of the whirlpool, and round the carcases and shapeless joints

the largest crowd: it hung on upright stakes and branches stuck in the

ground, and the effect was that of a nightmare wood, in which the weird

trees were bearing gory and dreadful fruit. It was all life and stir,

that bare hillside; and by half-past one o'clock the whole thing had

melted away, and there was no sign of a human being moving.

Mulai Omar was well known in Sok-el-Tleta, his wife's relatives living

there: because he was a saint his clothes and slippers were kissed by

every one who met us as we rode along to our camp beyond the Tuesday

Market. We passed women and children digging for ayerna root: the corn

not being yet ripe, they were short of food. The root of this weed,

though eatable, is most unwholesome, and unless carefully prepared,

people grow thinner and more yellow upon it daily.

But all our interest in a few moments was focussed upon a most imposing

ruin, a real Windsor Castle of a rudimentary type, which commanded a

hilltop on a table-land on the right, great walls rearing themselves up

to the sky, towers defending every corner, a turreted gate-house the

entrance, and the whole loop-holed, grim-looking enough. Obviously the

kaid who built such a kasbah was a great man: his garden, a beautiful

overgrown wilderness, gone like his castle to rack and ruin, lay below at

Sok-el-Tleta, wisely situated, for vegetation would have been badly

exposed upon the hilltop.

About twenty-seven years ago the kaid who built the kasbah--chiefly by

forced labour on the part of all the country people for miles round,

though skilled workmen came from Mogador and were paid--was attacked by

the Arab tribes from end to end of his province of Shedma, and after a

six-months' siege was forced to fly to Marrakesh, where he died in

prison, the tribesmen demolishing the castle for hidden treasure, till

every wall had yielded its secret. Probably he oppressed his province

like every other kaid, and was well hated. We went inside, and it was a

foregone conclusion that we should camp there upon the grass. The

governor's own halls were in a block in the centre, room after room, most

intricate. Our tents were pitched in the vast sunny courtyard. We

wandered about, exploring the odd corners, all the afternoon: not a

vestige of timber or decoration remained. Handsome little red-brown

kestrels with grey heads hovered over us and sat on the old walls,

uttering their querulous cry: a beautiful blue jay, with cinnamon back

and black-tipped wings and tail, was nesting in a hole among the bricks,

and let us come close to him. A _sib-sib_ scampered along an old

window-ledge, a little animal like a squirrel, grey with striped back,

the stripes running from head to tail: it ruffled out its tail at will.

The camel turned up at five, having been nine hours on the road. Later on

a _mona_ (a present) was brought us, consisting of butter, in a lordly

dish set round with pink roses. So in the deserted walls of the kasbah we

passed the night. Ghosts ought to have haunted those horrible

death-traps, the _matamors_, of which there are said to be a hundred. The

ground seemed riddled with these "wells," intended for the storage of

grain, but used by sheikhs and kaids as their private prisons, whence at

their will they draft on luckless captives to the public gaols: an old

enemy is quite harmless in a matamor, with a square stone over the top,

for the rest of his life.

The wonderful cisterns were another feature of the kasbah, immense tanks

underground, concreted and still water-tight--at the end of every dry

season cleaned out and whitewashed, now half full of stinking rain-water

and decay.

We got off at seven the next morning, struck the main road from Mogador,

left it, and found ourselves in quite an agricultural country, green

barley-fields, planted all over at intervals with figs and pomegranates,

even hedges of a sort. Then again we were in the argan forest--the last

of it, and the best: beautiful trees, with their knarled, twisted

branches. I thought of yews on the Surrey hills. Here coarse grass grew

between, something like a park at home: goats clambered up into the

forks, feasting on the green fruit. But all too soon the argans came to

an end, and we saw this phenomenon of Morocco no more.

Nor was the exchange of the argan forest for the everlasting _r`tam_

(white broom) and a sun-baked, arid wilderness, a welcome one. It always

meant stones and sand and a general grilling, the r`tam, as it waved like

pampas-grass to the far horizon. By-and-by palmetto cropped up, the

fan-shaped dwarf palm, which makes ropes and twine, baskets, mats,

dish-covers, leggings, hats, and girths. Here it grew in the middle of

wretched little attempts at corn-fields--a drawback to farming, though

from want of water farming might well have been let alone. Topping a

rise, the whole undulating country was r`tam and palmetto: occasionally a

flock of goats moved on its face, tended by thin mahogany-coloured Arab

boys in dirty woollen tunics.

When a single olive-tree appeared, we hailed its shade for lunch. The

mules, hobbled together, grazed: Omar and Saïd lay at a short distance,

drinking green tea and smoking near the little fire they had lit.

Botanical specimens had to be dried.

That night we camped outside the kasbah belonging to the most powerful

kaid in the whole district: an immense reddish-yellow pile it was, built

of _tapia_--that is, of mud, gravel, and water principally, poured into

bottomless cases on the wall itself, and left to set. The kasbah had

lived through a siege or two, and looked as if it would "ruin" quickly.

From the arched gateway a crowd of squalid retainers emerged to stare at

sun-helmets and Englishwomen: living like mediæval times within the

castle's protecting walls, the "feudal system" practically obtains in

Morocco in the present day.

Alas! the governor, Kaid Mohammed, was at Fez: his _khaylifa_

(lieutenant) received us inside the filthy and squalid kasbah, seated on

a doorstep--a better-dressed man than his retainers, curtailed perhaps in

intellectual allowance, who gave us leave to camp outside.

[Illustration: A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL.

[_To face p. 298._]

That evening we watched a blindfolded camel turning a water-wheel, and

some wretched prisoners, with irons on their feet, who shuffled out of

the gate and drew water. A black slave brought Kaid Mohammed's horses to

water one by one; then made each roll on a sandy patch of ground, off

which he first carefully picked every stone.

The sun streamed in at our tent door next morning, but we were at

breakfast before it had more than left the horizon, and soon on our way

through a rough country of scrub and olives--a capital country for pig

(which are shot in numbers), and practicable for spearing them, one would

think. Jogging along little paths, with a cool breeze in our faces, which

invariably went round with the sun, we came by-and-by to a valley, green

and wooded with olives, where barley was growing, looking as if it had

been kept under glass, it was such an even crop, and rooted in the

richest soil. Crack--crack--ping! and a stone whistled over our heads:

this meant Arab boys scaring birds with slings, made of dried grass, and

probably after David's pattern.

From out of an Arab village a little black child ran with a bowl of very

sour milk, which, however, Omar and Saïd appreciated: the child wore one

filthy whitish garment and a bead necklace, a little inky-black pigtail

completing it.

This was a day of all days, in that we had our first view of the Atlas

Mountains--those mountains which we had come so far to see. There they

were, first seen from a certain ridge, mighty peaks, snow-covered,

filling one with an intense desire to travel into their fastnesses: a

haze, however, hid the greater part of the range.

A countryman joined us for a short distance, to whom Omar gave a

cigarette-paper and a pinch of tobacco. Again all cultivation was

exchanged for uncompromising plain, stones, stones, and a soil like

iron, on which nothing grew except the thorny zizyphus lotus, with the

double row of thorns, one pointing forward, the other back, out of which

the Soudanese make their zarebas. A colony of bottle-shaped nests, made

of dried grass, in these thorn-bushes, tempted me to try for some eggs.

The attempt proved what a barrier the thorny lotus can be. I was

extricated with difficulty by means of Omar's gun-barrels and Saïd's

hands; but not without one nest and eggs--they apparently belonged to a

variety of sparrow.

A well with one tree, a spot of shade in the arid plain, intervened

farther on. The mules drank. An Arab rode up, lean, walnut-coloured;

slipped off his high-peaked red saddle, hobbled his mule, and lay down

under the tree. Hot as it was, we pushed on. This plain is said to remind

travellers of the stony part of the Sahara. In the air was a scent of

burnt grass and flowers--a _honey_ smell: every time a breeze came we

were duly grateful. The mules clattered on over the stones until Sidi

Moktar came in sight--a saint-house of the deepest sanctity, near which a

country market is held one day a week. Up to this cluster of what Omar

dignified by the name of _shops_ we rode, and, dismounting, stooped our

heads, and took possession of one of the minute mud-booths, the servants

going into another next door. We could sit upright, though not stand, and

there was shade in the shape of a thatched covering, while after the

glare and flare of the sun outside it was as cool as a cellar.

From one to three we rested there, drank green tea after lunch, studied

maps, took notes. But the sun was as hot as ever when we took to the open

road again, plain before us, the Atlas dimly to be seen. Some oddly

formed hills, from four to five hundred feet high, flat-topped, presently

appeared: one, from its contour, is called _Hank-el-Jemmel_ (Camel's

Back). We rode past them. A layer of coarse chalcedony covers the flat

summits, which would offer resistance when, ages ago, the Atlas wall was

scooped into ridge and ravine, and the plain below washed bare, except

for isolated remnants, such as these table-hills. We picked up fragments

of chalcedony and small blocks of volcanic rock, or basalt.

About five o'clock we reached an Arab _douar_, or village, and decided to

camp near it for the night. Twenty or thirty conical huts, made of

branches and grass and anything which keeps out the sun, black camel's

hair or a worn-out garment; the whole surrounded by a great hedge, or

_zareba_, of the thorny lotus, not growing, but piled up, one hole left

in the fence for exit, and closed at night by simply piling extra thorns

in the space; a company of howling dogs,--such is an Arab douar, and it

is probably unequalled for filth, though when the parasites become too

many, even the thick-skinned Bedouin moves out, and a new douar is put up

somewhere else. There was no choice as regards camping near such a spot:

it may have been unsafe in the open--at any rate no servants could ever

be induced to sleep except under the protection of a village or a kasbah.

It was five o'clock. An old sheikh or headman came out from between the

thorn-barrier, welcomed us, and led the way inside to a perfectly

impossible open space, a dunghill, amongst the huts, where we might camp;

it was overrun with fowls, and covered with filth of every description.

Therefore, though assured that we should be much safer within the zareba,

and deeply against the wishes of the servants, we insisted upon leading

the way outside, and choosing a spot as far removed from the fence as

possible, though only too near for our own comfort. As soon as the tents

were pitched and the sun had set, such a noise of goats (which had just

been driven inside the douar) bleating, and donkeys braying, and dogs

barking, and children crying, arose, as we prayed it might not be our lot

often to hear at the end of a hard day.

An admiring throng had gathered round us while the tent was in course of

erection, and we were sitting on the grass. One old woman squatted before

us, cross-legged, not a yard from our feet, and _gazed_; she wore nothing

but one woollen garment, apparently a square held together on the

shoulders by steel pins: her skinny arms, legs, and feet were bare, of

course. We did not encourage "the masses," but kept them at arm's-length

with sticks.

That was a noisy night: half the douar was apparently being entertained

in the servants' tent, which for safety was pitched all too close to our

own, and they talked far on into the small hours in mumbling undertones,

to the sound of which we finally slept, nor waked till a glorious dawn in

a cloudless sky roused us at five o'clock. The herds were then wending

their way out of the douar, filing across the plain, the mysterious

delicate light of sunrise on the backs of the sheep and goats. By seven

o'clock the sun was too hot to sit in for choice. We had already

breakfasted in the conical shadow cast by the tent, a group of children

watching every operation, some of them wearing the quaintest necklaces,

of argan nuts strung together, and lumps of yellow sulphur sewn into

perforated squares of leather: these were eagerly untied and handed over

to us for a _bellune_ (2½d.).

At eight o'clock we had left the douar behind, and were heading for

Sheshaoua, south of the Camel's Back, along a trail more stony and

desert-like than any before: even the few thorn-bushes did not flourish;

perhaps the white snails, with which they were so thickly covered that

the branches looked all in blossom, did not agree with them--snails which

are beloved of partridges. We met no man nor animal, till at last a

_rekass_ passed us, a runner carrying the mail to Mogador, jogging along

the two hundred and seventy miles' journey, for which he would be paid,

there and back again, thirteen shillings. His stick was tucked under his

clothes, down his back, for the sake of ventilation; his waistband was

tightened; his palm-leaf wallet was on his back, with letters, possibly

some bread, a match or two, and some hemp, inside. He was a long-limbed

fellow, bronzed and bearded, with the vacant, glassy eyes of a

kif-smoker; for kif kept him going often instead of food, and helped him

to swing along day after day, untiring, like a camel, sleeping little,

praying occasionally at a saint's tomb, fording the streams, trotting

over the plains, his eyes fixed on the horizon--"eating the miles," as

Arabs say. This particular rekass left Marrakesh on Monday morning at

ten, and reached Mogador on Wednesday afternoon at three, doing his two

hundred and seventy miles in forty-nine hours.

When Sir William Kirby Green died suddenly on an embassy in Marrakesh, a

rekass carried the news to Mazagan, a hundred and sixty miles, in

thirty-two hours; but the Vice-Consul told me that upon reaching his

office the man fell down--he could not stand to tell the news.

We rode on, praying for a breeze which never came: the sun literally

sizzled on the baked desert, the rocks gave out an oven-like heat, and

the rarefied air oscillated over the wastes. It was too hazy for more

than glimpses of the Atlas and their snows: as far as we could see

stretched only illimitable drab-coloured plain, broken by the flat-topped

hills. At last we stumbled along to the top of a ridge; and there,

strange and delightful sight, away in the distance lay a green basin,

trees, no mirage, but the valley of Sheshaoua.

Sheshaoua is a district ruled by a powerful governor, whose great kasbah

lies somewhere about the centre, dominating a large village. The district

is watered by a stream from the Atlas Mountains, which accounts for its

fertility; for, except where irrigation is possible, there can be no

cultivation in this sahara: wide ditches conduct the stream across the

length and breadth of the province, resulting in a green ribbon upon the

face of the plain, the fields being edged with little hard mud-banks,

keeping the water evenly distributed over the surface when the crops need

flooding.

To have lived upon sun-burn is to appreciate the colour green: the march

lost its monotony and some of its heat, when green lay in front and came

nearer with every stride. Two hours and a half were short: the end of

that time found us riding between corn-fields, crossing streamlet after

streamlet watering the vegetation, and at last jogging over real turf,

instead of clattering on stones, which had made talking difficult for the

last day or two; now the path was actually soft and earthy. A long string

of camels kept pace with us for a time on a parallel trail; then a douar

came into sight, afterwards two saint-houses and a ruined kasbah. That

half of these castles are ruined is not to be wondered at, considering

that they are mud-built, and that tribal disputes and invasions are

interminable. Some of those same crumbling tapia walls which we passed

supported immense earthen jars, standing out against the sky--jars which

are stored with corn or butter, and sealed up: nine months' old butter

has the reputation of an old wine.

Shady trees, standing for the most part by the stream, hung over our

path, but would have made damp camping-grounds, and we rode on through a

marsh, up one ridge, down the opposite side, and at last into the

principal village of Sheshaoua, not far from which, on a hillside to the

north-east, lay one of the familiar country market-places, with its

collection of little shelters for the sellers, its upright branches on

which to hang meat--Thursday's market this. A ruined, red-walled kasbah

faced it, apparently inhabited by storks alone, busy building their great

rough nests: some were in the village.

Sheshaoua was no douar, but a high-walled collection of houses,

overlooked by the modern kasbah on the hill. Thither we rode, up the

steep slope, to call on the kaid, Sekassam Belcady, and ask permission to

pitch the tents in one of the gardens which fringed the stream below.

This the khaylifa granted at once (the kaid himself being at Fez with the

Sultan), pressing on us the alternative of putting up inside the kasbah

itself; but the open air had stronger attractions, and we wound our way

downhill to the stream, on the other side of which the kaid's own garden

lay. There being no bridge, the stream deep, and the banks steep, the

mules were driven over by themselves, and R. and I followed one by one on

Omar's back--on and into a natural garden fit for the gods, one of

Nature's own parterres, and a paradise at that.

On dry ground, underneath orange-trees covered with blossom, we lunched

and lay down: of flowers, except wild ones, there were none, nor any

attempt at cultivation; the terraces were dense in greenery and shade,

interlaced with branches, intersected by streamlets, perfumed with

orange flowers; water murmured; nightingales answered each other from

every corner; wood-pigeons cooed content; most musical of all, the

bulbul's throbbing, passionate note--not loud--was heard for the first

time. Yes; we might have said: "If there is a heaven upon earth, it is

this, it is this, it is this."

The snake creeps into most paradises: suddenly a thunder-storm invaded

ours; heavy rain began even to penetrate the thick lace of leaves and

branches over our heads, and, walking to the opening at the edge of the

wood, it was clear that heavy storms were working up from the north-east;

nor did the day improve. Having sat through two downpours, with every

sign of more to follow, when another pressing invitation came from the

khaylifa to spend the night in the kasbah, it seemed foolish to do other

than accept; for bad weather under tents, which like ours did not claim

to be waterproof, has no attractions. Further, the khaylifa had stated

that the guest-house was new, and had never been occupied.

Thither we hurried through the rain. The inside of the "castle" was

blocked by a collection of filthy-looking sheds or rooms, which seemed to

be full of Arabs and negroes and women--wives of the khaylifa--all of

them squalid and mannerless: the paths between were littered with refuse.

A country kaid, judging from the state of his kasbah, is possessed of no

refinement, and has less sense of decency and comfort, as European ideas

go, than many members of the labouring class at home.

The appearance of the guest-house was, however, reassuring: the long

lofty room into which we were shown had been newly whitewashed, the

ceiling painted red and green; its double doors and two windows opened

into a little courtyard, and rooms beyond housed the servants. A sheep

was being skinned in an adjoining shed: we were to be feasted.

Meantime, few, if any, of the kaid's retainers could have abstained from

visiting us, to judge by the levée which we held for more than an hour:

perhaps the black slaves were most interesting, but they were also

hardest to remove, from the scene of such a phenomenon, as two

Englishwomen within their own walls. Probably no such thing had happened

within the memory of man; for Sheshaoua is off the beaten track to

Marrakesh, nor do travellers as a rule sleep out of their tents.

While we had tea, under a battery of eyes, and further annoyed by the

chatter at the open door and windows, a _mona_ (a present from the

governor) arrived, and was set down at our feet. It was not the

time--just after tea--to eat an immense dish of _coos-coosoo_, or a

steaming pile of hot mutton and raisins, cooked in oil, which lay on the

round trenchers, when the great beehive-like straw covers were raised:

some of the hot cakes accompanying them might be managed, but the rest

was handed over to the expectant servants, to whom coos-coosoo is as

roast beef to the British labourer, though less stimulating, for it only

consists of wheat or millet or maize flour, granulated, steamed, and

eaten hot, sometimes crowned with chicken.

Following hard on the mona came a message from the khaylifa asking for

medicine. Graphically answering my question as to what was the matter

with him, the messenger stroked his waist: we found a pill, which was

carried off with much gratitude.

A short time elapsed, and then, to our horror, four slaves arrived,

carrying great preparations for tea--brass trays, urn, and the whole

paraphernalia--mint and sweetness filling the room. Again the servants

benefited; and even a third time, after we were actually in bed; for the

door was bombarded, and three women came in, and laid a great almond

pudding, of much delicacy, covered with stripes of grated cinnamon, at

our feet.

That night was the one bad experience of our time in Morocco. Though the

guest-room was new and apparently clean, some matting had been laid on

the floor, which we had not removed, and with the darkness its occupants

came out in such numbers that, in spite of "Keating" round the legs of

each bed, the long hours were taken up in warfare, and we never slept.

Next day the room was scoured out, and the lively matting ejected, while

we were strolling round Sheshaoua between heavy showers of rain, which

reduced the clay country to a state of quagmire. However, Sunday, after a

peaceful night both inside and out of doors, broke fresh and clear: all

the great loose thunder-clouds had packed themselves into long cloudlets

with ruled horizontal bases; and in clear, rarefied air, standing up

almost unearthly in their beauty, the Atlas range from end to end, was to

be seen at last. Chiselled peak after peak, upon which no traveller has

ever set foot, glistened in the sun, apparently about ten miles off, in

reality more like thirty or forty. It was one of those mornings which

have been thoroughly washed, and the swirling pea-soup river bore witness

to the operation as surely as the air of purity which the whole country

wore. All was radiant: down below, the orange grove of our arrival rang

with nightingales and bulbuls; there was a scent of heaven, an undertone

of racing waters.

[Illustration: SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH.

[_To face p. 308._]

Just as we were packed up to start, the khaylifa sent and expressed

thanks for our medicine, and asked that as a favour we would see his

wives, one of whom was ill. They were found in mud rooms, dark and dirty,

most uninteresting in themselves. One stout "lady" had a swelled neck,

the other had cataract: both wished to be prescribed for. I recommended,

through Omar, bathing the swelled neck: it was necessary from a

cleanliness point of view. From the same point of view I shook hands

hurriedly and departed, climbed into the saddle, and was soon far away

from the kasbah at Sheshaoua.

CHAPTER XI

A PARTING MONA--FORDING SHESHAOUA RIVER--JARS OF FOOD--FIRST SIGHT OF

MARRAKESH--A PERILOUS CROSSING--RIDE INTO MARRAKESH--THE SLAVE MARKET.

CHAPTER XI

"We who are old, old and gay,

O so old!

Thousands of years, thousands of years,

If all were told:

Give to these children, new from the world,

Rest far from men.

Is anything better, anything better?

Tell us it then:

Us who are old, old and gay,

O so old!

Thousands of years, thousands of years,

If all were told."

W. B. YEATS.

WE were once more upon the march; and yet all links with the kasbah were

not broken, for we had gone but a short way when a servant ran after us,

carrying a familiar dish, known from afar--a parting mona. Laid at our

feet, we tasted, as courtesy demanded, a coos-coosoo made of grated

almonds, powdered sugar, and cream--a sweet which cloys at an early hour

in the day, though to Moorish servants, at any and every moment of their

lives, it is as caviare to the few. A circle was formed round the dish:

in two minutes, all that was left, was "an aching china blank."

Quantity rather than quality distinguishes Moorish cookery. The rich

man's dishes are more or less like the poor man's, only that he has six

times as many; indeed, there are said to be dishes of coos-coosoo which

seven men can barely carry. The Sultan's own cuisine is quite simple,

better served, and more of it perhaps, than his subjects', but otherwise

exactly the same.

Having disposed of the mona, our cavalcade started, and we rode down to

the Sheshaoua River, still in heavy flood, but fordable since the fine

night. The waters roared past between the crumbling banks: we saw in one

place waggon-loads of red soil suddenly subside with a vast noise into

the cataract which had undermined it. Upon the brink the men stripped

themselves; then, wading into the torrent, hauled across mules, camel,

and donkey one by one: we took our feet out of the stirrups, and managed

to keep dry; the camel behaved admirably.

[Illustration: TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE.

[_To face p. 314._]

It was an uneventful day, across a bleak and stony country. Towards

evening we passed a ruined kasbah, rose-red in the sunset. Riding due

east, our long sharp shadows pointed ahead: there was a peace over all

things. The shadowed heights on the right, scooped into blue gullies and

mighty crests, carried a veil of cloud on their tops: the good little red

path we were on, was without a stone. As the sun dropped we swung along

into a dim grey beyond, to the muffled tramp, tramp of the mules' hoofs,

_shuffle-shuffle through the night_, while a cool breeze got up, and a

flight of birds high above us called aloud as they passed over. Ah! but

how good it was!--no telegrams, no conventionalities, no possessions

worth worry or consideration. Strange, the influence which such a simple

life has upon the mind: letters, and newspapers, and the topics of the

day, and the world in general, have little interest for the time being,

and get buried in the wastepaper-basket of trivialities, while the

weather, and the state of the track, and little things in Nature,

assume gigantic proportions and fill the mind.

We camped that night near another red ruined kasbah, whose long line of

crumbling tapia walls against the Atlas Mountains stretched itself out

like a watch-dog beside the forbidden hills. In the morning Arabs were

more importunate than ever, one woman thrusting her head between the

flaps of the canvas while we were dressing. A deal, meantime, went on in

the kitchen-tent over a lamb, Omar feeling its neck and tail, and

subsequently buying it for five shillings, after which it was silently

dispatched on the far side, skinned, cut up; and the donkey bore a

pannierful of meat that day.

Our blue jay of the ruined kasbah at Sok-el-Tleta turned up again on the

march, beautiful as ever, and no less tame; but all the birds shared that

distinction, and were of a confiding nature delightful to see.

Before Frouga, one of our next camping-grounds, was reached, we passed a

kasbah which six years ago was in the possession of a kaid, who may or

may not be still alive, in prison. His province, at any rate, rose

against him to a man at the late Sultan's death, and wrecked his castle,

the Government disposing of him after he had escaped to Marrakesh. The

orchards of almond-trees, with thriving beans planted underneath them,

and the fat fields of barley, spoke volumes for the prosperity of his

days. It takes much provocation to induce country people to rise and

rebel against their kaid; for rebellion, if unsuccessful, brings down

such awful vengeance on the heads of the tribesmen: therefore his hard

case was probably just punishment.

Another river, the Asif-el-Mel, had to be forded on the same day. It was

a bad crossing, we were warned by one sheikh not to attempt it, and

neither of our men knew the ford; but some Arabs turned up, and they

helped to get the mules safely across. R. and I had each four men with

us: we tied our boots, stockings, camera and glasses round our necks, and

rode over, careful not to look down at the race of the torrent, which has

turned horsemen giddy often enough,--a raging river rather more than

breast-high is not a thing to be trifled with. On the banks beyond lay a

large and flourishing village, chiefly remarkable on account of its

_Mellah_ (Jews' Quarter),--a strange thing to find so far from

civilization; and yet it was not, for the interior of Morocco is full of

wandering Israelites, who, living and dying in remote Arab and Berber

settlements, become naturalized to a certain extent, yet ever "keep

themselves to themselves," housed only in their own "quarter," under lock

and key after sundown, and subjected to a few irksome regulations. Some

of them become rich on the profits of the "middle man," buying skins and

produce of all sorts from the country people, and passing them through to

the coast towns: such men may be worth from £3,000 to £5,000.

It is hard to conceive a race settling from choice amongst the squalor

and filth of the lowest type of Arab, but as a matter of fact, the Jewish

Quarter violated, over and above all the rest of the village put

together, every tradition of cleanliness. The Berber villages of the

north, dirty enough in all conscience, absolutely shone in comparison

with the Arab douars in the south, or with their larger settlements,

those semi-villages, whose flat-roofed huts were stacked with earthen or

basket-work jars. These bottle-shaped jars, full of what Mohammed calls

"the liquor of the bee," cream-cheese, barley, etc., were plastered with

mud, and waterproof: when they occurred in twos and threes on every roof,

the effect was striking.

It would have been a monotonous ride to Frouga except for the Atlas

Mountains on our right, which we had been steadily nearing for days: now

comparatively close, their gleaming snow-peaks were never without

interest, and Omar told tales of travellers' experiences up in one or two

of the passes. The principal roads across the chain to Taroudant,

Ras-el-Ouad, and the Sus, pass through Frouga, and make it an important

place. It possesses an _inzella_, or sort of fondâk, where men and

transport are safe for the night under the protection of the kaid of the

district.

We pitched our tents among little fields of beans and barley, planted

with olive-trees, close to a mosque, and awoke when _es-sbar_ (sunrise)

was called in sonorous tones from the top of the dome: a cuckoo answered

the mueddzin, and a pair of little doves began to coo persistently.

The gardens of Frouga are celebrated--full of vines planted like

hop-gardens, of prickly pear, figs, pears, apricots, and corn, in between

the fruit-trees. And yet the owners are not rich: the governors of the

district see to that; for supposing a man becomes richer than the

governor, X., he goes to the Government and says, "If you make me

governor instead of X., I will bring you more money than he does, and

here is a present at the same time." The Government accepts the bribe,

and gives the man a letter stating that he is made governor instead of X.

The man collects his friends and ousts X., perhaps imprisoning him for

life. A governor, therefore, never allows a man under him to possess

capital. He may be rich in cattle and gardens, but he will have to pay

the governor out of his profits from thirty to ninety shillings at stated

times all the year round, and never have any "spare cash." If he refuses

to pay, he is turned out of his own home and acres, which fall into the

governor's hands. Naturally he prefers to cling to his gardens.

Beyond Frouga lay some of the most fertile land in Morocco. We passed

wonderful crops of barley and wheat, which in an average year, for every

bushel sown, yield forty bushels. Moors say that corn in Morocco is known

to yield, not forty, but a hundred-fold. In England fifteen-fold is

considered an average crop. Morocco grows two crops each year: there is a

spring harvest and an autumn harvest. It would seem, therefore, that if

agriculture were encouraged, and light railways laid down to the coast,

money would pour into the country--especially supposing that, instead of

wheat, such a crop as linseed was grown. Russian and American competition

would probably diminish the profits to be made out of wheat, but a soil

and a climate like Morocco might grow anything and everything. At present

fraud and dishonesty seem the soul of trade: the Jew brokers cheat the

Moors; the Moors sand their sheep's wool to make it heavy, mix paraffin

candles with their beeswax, put all manner of things into oil, and so on.

But a single example shows the spirit of the country. A friend of ours

found his horses becoming poor, yet he saw their corn taken out to them

every evening: he examined it; it was quite good. After a time it

occurred to him to look inside the horses' mouths, and he found the gums

cut and lacerated in order to prevent their eating their barley, which,

after it had lain a certain time on the ground untouched, was confiscated

by the servants.

[Illustration: MARRAKESH.

[_To face p. 318._]

Meanwhile, each day as we marched on, brought us nearer to our bourn, and

at last we found ourselves on a wide flat plain, unbroken, except by the

trail which we followed, consisting of six or eight narrow paths, winding

on side by side like railway rails--a splendid "high road" for

Morocco. Truly it is a spare-room country. The snaking track might take

up acres and acres of rich land. What matter! There is room.

It was still very hot: smoked spectacles kept off a certain amount of

glare, and I wore two hats, a straw on top of a felt, having neglected to

bring a solar topi; but even so the sun was unnecessarily generous,

glowing on the splendid polish which some of the Arabs carried on their

sepia-coloured skulls, and making it impossible to follow the crested

larks, singing their heads off, up in the brilliant sky.

At last we felt a breeze, topped a low rise: an old greybeard all in

white jogged up towards us on a donkey, a man running behind; a village

lay below; but our eyes only went to one spot in the wide blue plain,

which was spread out like a praying-carpet before us. That spot lay

twenty-five miles off--a single tower, the Kutobea in Morocco City.

"Marrakesh!" cried Omar and Saïd simultaneously.

We rode on, across dry plain, over old river-beds, through patches of

olive-trees, pink oleander, and castor-oil plant; leaving Arab douars

behind; meeting with white cow-birds which recalled Tetuan; passing men

with merchandise on camels and donkeys, strings of country people, and

wanderers of all sorts; stopping to rest near wells where swallows were

building in the brickwork and donkeys stood asleep in the shade; watching

Arabs beating out corn with sticks, men ploughing, until we were once

more amongst "greenery" and in a fertile stretch of country. Surely there

was a river near. We passed fine crops of maize; onions were doing

famously; fields of bearded wheat rustled in a life-giving breeze. And

then the Wad-el-Nyfs, the largest river we had to cross, came into sight.

Saïd at the outset precipitated himself into a great hole, and was well

ducked: eventually we all landed safely on the other side, though the

start was far from reassuring, some Arabs on the bank telling us it was

"not good" to cross, and wading down into the torrent, for us to see that

the water took them up to their necks almost at once, sweeping them

down-stream. Before we rode into the water every man divested himself of

each particle of clothing which he wore; and R. got across with two

dark-skinned individuals clinging on to her legs, one on each side of the

mule, a third hanging on to its bridle, and a fourth at its tail; while I

followed also with four attendants. Not long ago, a party of missionaries

was fording one of these very rivers, and neglected to have men at the

mules' heads, one of which stumbled and threw its rider into the rapid

stream: she was drowned. It was not deep at the time, or more precaution

would have been taken: on the other hand, the stream is always like a

mill-race, an accident can happen in a moment, and therefore a rule

should be made, and never under any circumstances broken, to the effect

that every rider have a man at the mule's head, and more than one,

according to the state of the river.

We had a long hot ride to Tamsloect: the breeze, which was westerly, was

useless to us; the track led over stony yellow hills; now and again we

caught glimpses of the Kutobea standing up very far away; and all the

time the great snow-fields, on the vast mountains, close upon our right,

looked tantalizingly near and cold. Occasionally we watered the mules at

a stream: tortoises were swimming about in one of these. But on the whole

it was a singularly uneventful and a very sultry ride, until at last long

lines of red mud walls, many gardens, three mosque towers, and some tall,

dark, green cypress-trees proclaimed Tamsloect--an important village,

possessing a Friday market, an unequalled view of the Atlas, and a saint,

Mulai Abdullah Ben Hassi.

An Arab, Hadj Cadour, is one of the great men in Tamsloect; and to him,

having an introduction, we went. The best hours spent in Morocco were

those lived with certain of the Moors themselves, sharing for a short

time their simple and yet fantastic life, learning something of their

innate courtesy and generous hospitality. Hadj Cadour was a host of the

old aristocratic school. He was out at his garden-house when we reached

the village, entertaining friends at a tea party; and upon our message

reaching him, he sent back a man on a white horse to point out another of

his gardens close at hand, where he suggested that the tents should be

pitched, while R. and I rode out and joined his tea party.

Leaving Omar to superintend the camp, we started off after the rider on

the white horse: he led the way through the village, finally into a

labyrinth of gardens, where we brushed through bearded wheat such as I

have never seen before nor since, which luxuriated with olives,

fruit-trees of all sorts, and pale pink monthly roses. Presently in the

midst of the semi-wilderness a little white house intervened, half buried

in trees, and close to it, in the shade, under an olive, was gathered

Hadj Cadour's tea party, six or eight dignified Arabs, in those perfectly

washed and blanched garments which so fit their solemn, dignified

manners, their sad and intellectual type of faces: not that Moors are

necessarily either of the two last; but they look it--that is all.

A great tea-kettle, as usual, loomed in the background; carpets and thick

red Morocco leather cushions made seats for the members of the charmed

circle: we reclined there with the rest, talking, as far as a few Arabic

words would carry us, of our starting-point, our destination, the road,

the rivers, the weather, Hadj Cadour helping us out, one and all

interested and anxious to be understood and to understand. Our host

dispensed _sherrub de minat_, the wine of the country, made from grapes;

the little dome-shaped pewter teapot was there, with its fond

associations of Morocco, together with the copper tray and circle of

diminutive painted glasses; a gorgeous indolent sun poured down beyond

the patch of shade; the hum and hover of insects vibrated in the air; and

presently musicians were summoned--girls wearing pale green jellabs and

silver ornaments, with yellow handkerchiefs twisted round their heads,

men in bright colours. Sitting down between us, each was given a glass of

sherrub de minat, and by-and-by they began to play. Weird and wild music

it was, that of the _tareegea_, the _gimbi_, and the _tahr_, quaint

native instruments of the roughest construction, and yet, as music,

possessing fascination not a little.

The long kif-pipes were lighted, green tea and wine were sipped, the

white figures stretched themselves on the cushions, and a great and

dreamy content came over the faces under the white turbans. There was

nowhere a trace of boredom such as mars so many European

entertainments--rather the thing was loved for itself, and every man felt

it and entered into its spirit. Now and then the musicians broke into a

strange song, and the guests beat their hands and murmured in chorus;

then again they would seem half intoxicated, in a harmless fashion, with

kif and wine and music, and would appear to be absent in a world of their

own. The music had a lilt in it, and often a suggestion of something half

tamed, desperate, swung along with the cadences; and thin wreaths of

smoke from the long pipes blew up through the olive branches, and an

Arabic sentence dropped now and again on the ear: the hot, slow, sleepy

afternoon waned. . . .

Poetry bulks so largely in the Arabic nature. Emotional and yet simple,

that nature is, to a certain extent, appealed to by the refined. The

sordid and vulgar have no attractions for it. There is no language more

poetical than the Arabic language, where "snow" is called "hair of the

mountain" and "rainbow" is "bride of the rain." "Red mullet" is "the

sultan of fishes": "maiden-hair fern" is translated by "little cane of

the well." Ordinary Arabic words show an extraordinary gift of

description: the word for "secretly" means literally "under the matting,"

and "never" is expressed thus, "when the charcoal takes root and the salt

buds."

Uncontrolled ascendency of imagination marks the Arab, and endows his

nature with a fascination all its own: an outdoor life is his heritage,

and the things of Nature are a part of himself. "Spring" he calls

"grass"; "summer" is "gleaning"; "autumn" is "fruit"; "winter" is

"rainy."

If only he could keep pure his race, Morocco had never stood among the

nations where she stands now. The steady infusion of African blood is

becoming her ruin: the sensual negro type, spreading rapidly, is eating

its way into the heart of the people. When it is remembered that

thousands upon thousands of slaves are imported into Morocco from the

interior of Africa every year, that they become eventually "free," their

children inheriting equal rights with other children, it is no longer a

matter of wonder that the Moorish race shows signs of deterioration, that

its people are effete. It is after meeting with men such as Hadj Cadour

and many others, who hark back to the old type of chief and horseman and

the desert life, touched with the old vein of poetry and chivalry, that

one regrets the things which are. But we had spent an afternoon which was

one worth recollecting; and when we had parted from that little circle

under the shady olive, and were jogging back to our tents, it was to

remember that there are still good things in Morocco.

The tents we found ready for us in a delightful spot enclosed by a wall:

a tank lay in the centre of the garden, around it a few paths, and a

great deal of mint. But a terrible ordeal awaited us--green tea and a

great spread, provided by the brother of Hadj Cadour, who had also

arranged carpets as seats around the tank. Again next morning, just after

we had finished breakfast, this hospitable individual sent into our tent

two steaming hot chickens fried brown in argan oil, with half a dozen

round cakes of fine flour; and when, immediately afterwards, we rode to

his house to say farewell and tender our thanks, he proffered green tea

once more.

Heavy drops of rain awoke us in the middle of the night; but just as an

ominous patter was coming through the old canvas and sounding on the

bed-clothes, the shower stopped. Again later it came on, with thunder.

Omar changed the smart clothes which he had put on in view of a triumphal

entry into Marrakesh; we packed and got off as quickly as we could,

expecting more rain; many good-byes were said; Hadj Cadour sent a servant

with us to the gates; and we rode out of Tamsloect.

[Illustration: THE OPEN GATE.

[_To face p. 324._]

Outside, towards the east, its gardens were numerous: great black poplars

and palms grew freely. For an hour we rode alongside a district which

belonged entirely to Mulai el Hadj, the great man of Tamsloect, and a

holy Shar[=i]f to boot. This man is rich, and because he is a holy

Shar[=i]f he can never be dispossessed of his wealth. His white house

and cypress-trees stand out prominently in the village we had just left;

throughout his gardens he has built a succession of water-towers, which

irrigate his land; he is British-protected, and as important a man in the

south as the French-protected Wazeer of Wazan is in the north.

All this time we were riding steadily towards Marrakesh, interest

increasing with every step as we neared the city, to visit which we had

left Mogador about ten days before.

That last day's march was not an interesting one: the great Atlas, upon

which we had now turned our backs, were no longer to be seen, on account

of clouds which the last night's storm had brought upon them; the plain

over which we rode possessed a deadly monotony, for we were not entering

Marrakesh upon its best side, where gardens upon gardens of palm-trees

stretch beyond the city gates for miles and miles, but our road from

Tamsloect was prosaic and dull. Certainly we crossed some of the

wonderful underground canals, which carry water five and ten miles, from

springs in the country, into the city--about whose origin nothing

whatever is known, tradition remaining silent as to any builder. These

great works are merely water-ways tunnelled through the solid earth, not

at any great distance from the surface: along their courses the streams

are conducted for great distances. There are openings at intervals which

ventilate the tunnels: these are kept clean and easily examined by means

of the same. The whole arrangement is very rough, very primitive, but

perfectly answers the purpose for which it was made.

The crops which we left behind us at every mile looked well, and it was

to be hoped would soon make good the failure of the preceding crop: that

failure had accounted for the skinny children and lean women whom we had

met, and was the reason of the country people's continuous digging for

ayerna root, and washing the same by the roadside and in so many

villages.

Meanwhile, Marrakesh and its adobe walls, of a sad yellow-pink tone, grew

nearer and nearer, till at last the long line of crumbling tapia was but

a short distance off, and the Báb-el-Roub, a massive gateway, plainly to

be seen. Just outside the walls, Mr. Miller, one of the missionaries, met

us: he had one piece of news, which carried with it regret wherever it

was heard across the length and breadth of the British Empire--the death

of Cecil Rhodes. Under the Báb-el-Roub we rode into the city of crumbling

walls and silent sandy roadways: somewhat of a deserted city, the great

southern capital appeared to be at first; but then we were nowhere near

its heart, and the half of it is gardens and quiet houses, while a small

part only, is wholly full of vitality: the whole is crumbling to pieces,

and strange of all strangest cities ever seen.

We rode straight to Kaid Maclean's house, lent us by Lady Maclean--the

best house in Morocco City, over-looking one of the many market-places,

and that open space in which story-tellers and snake-charmers, surrounded

by a dense circle of admirers, cater to an attentive throng. The house

was empty, and we "camped" in several of the rooms, lunching in a long

gallery which looked straight out on to the Atlas Mountains: the mules

went into a capacious stable; the servants made themselves comfortable in

the kitchens. It is hard to find house-room in Marrakesh: of course a

hotel is unheard of, nor is camping-ground to be met with easily. There

are no foreign consuls in this far-off city, and no English element

beyond the two or three missionaries who live there. Travellers have

generally to depend upon the loan of some house for the time being, from

a holy Shar[=i]f or Moor of some standing; but the house may be anywhere,

and comfortable or otherwise. Since the Sultan was at Fez, his army and

his commander-in-chief, Kaid Maclean, were at Fez too: hence the reason

of the Macleans' house standing empty, within which we were so fortunate

as to find ourselves.

Marrakesh cannot be described: it must be seen. It is more suggestive,

more intangible, more elusive--that is to say, its Eastern medley of a

population is so, and its crumbling tapia-walled houses are so--than any

other Moorish city. More ghosts should stalk the half-deserted yellow

roadways of Marrakesh, more mysteries be shrouded within the windowless

walls, than a man of Western civilization could conceive.

It is a vast city--other writers have chronicled the number of square

miles which it accounts for--and yet, in spite of its size, the sum-total

of souls it contains is not overwhelming. There are gardens everywhere,

stretch after stretch of palm-trees, acre after acre of fruit-trees, and

wedged among them all, lie the flat roofs, swarm the endless throng which

spells humanity; and the oddest, most varied humanity--Arabs and negroes,

men from the Sus, from the Sahara, from Draa, Berber hillmen, tribesmen

from the Atlas, a tumultuous multitude, a hive of bees of whom no census

has ever been made. We were among them all, the first time we rode

through the city. No one walks in Marrakesh: as a matter of fact I did

later on, often enough, sometimes alone, getting somewhat jostled in the

narrow ways--beyond that in no way inconvenienced. But every one who can,

is on a mule or a long-tailed countrybred, pushing along at a foot's

pace, crying out now and then, and avoiding this pair of black toes,

that coffee-coloured bare heel.

Beyond the wall, covered with nails, whereon heads are fastened after

rebellions have been quenched and the time of punishment and warning has

come, we rode into the land of little shops. Here, in another instance,

Marrakesh is unique: the narrow streets were in great part entirely

roofed in overhead either by vines or by bamboos; the brilliant sunlight

streamed through the spaces between the vines and canes, and chequered

the seething white throng which eternally passed underneath it. From an

open street we plunged into the cool shade of one of these arcades. And

how it moved! Nothing ever stood still in the Marrakesh soks. Life

"travels" for ever and for ever there. Between the shops, themselves

teeming with bustle and incident, moved up and down, the throng of white,

draped, dignified figures, calling, heaving, struggling, jostling

sometimes, chattering always, blotched with shifting yellow sunlight and

black shadow cast by the lattice roof overhead. It was a transformation

scene; it was a weird dream--weird to the point of seeming unreal, unlike

men and the haunts of men, though all the time rampant with _humans_.

[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]

THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH.

[_To face p. 328._]

When the Sultan went to Fez, a party of soldiers and goldsmiths and

craftsmen of all sorts went with him from the city of Marrakesh, in

number over forty thousand souls. But the exodus made no appreciable

difference in the soks. Not only the numbers, but the types of the stream

of faces between which we rode were all striking, and each one so far

removed from anything at all European. Humanity can indeed be separated

from humanity by gulfs impassable, or gulfs which may alone be bridged

over by a violation of nature, on the part of the man upon the east

bank or upon the west bank.

The palm-trees wave above Marrakesh, turtle-backed mosques and tall

towers rise among the gardens and gleam in the sun, but above and beyond

every other feature of the far-away fantastic southern capital one

watch-tower rises over everything and rears itself into the sky--the

Kutobea, built, according to tradition, by Fabir for the Sultan El

Mansur. It stands in a vast empty space close to the Great Mosque: few

people pass that way--their footfalls are almost unheard in the soft

sand; and the lonely tower cuts the clear quiet sky. The Kutobea is built

of dark red stone. There is a pattern, alternately raised and sunk, on

the faces of the minaret, the sunk part cut deep, the raised part carved

and standing out. A broad band of wonderful black and green iridescent

tiles, snakes round the top like some opulent spotted serpent. Part of it

has dropped away: the gilded brass balls, the cupola, are here and there

tarnished; but the sun sets, and his indulgent rays swamp every defect,

burnish and polish and gild corner-stone and fretted marble and

emerald-green tile alike, until the "to-day" of the Kutobea is as

triumphant as its "yesterday" of many hundred years. The design of the

tower itself--the minaret--is said to have come from Constantinople, as

did the Giralda at Seville, which it so resembles.

Of the mosque, beside the Kutobea, nothing was to be seen except its

walls, and through an open door avenues of pillars. The huge building has

an Arabic name meaning "The Mosque of the Books"; for what reason--who

can tell?--tradition is silent.

Marrakesh itself is supposed to have been built upon the site of an

immensely old structure, the ancient Martok. As it is now,

Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin founded it in 1072, a city which covers almost as much

ground as Paris--a purely African city. Fez, Tetuan, Tangier, have

Spanish blood in them: Marrakesh is African to the core. Arabs here are

in a minority: the spare Saharowi type, the shaved lip and cheeks and

pointed chin-tuft of the Berber race, men from the mysterious sandy

steppes below Cape Bojador, Soudanese blacks, men from Wadnoon--one and

all congregate in this city. Even the music and songs are, naturally

enough, all African, with the strange interval, the rhythm which halts

and races where no European music ever halted or raced; and the tom-tom,

the gimbri, the ear-piercing Moorish flute, all fall upon the English ear

as things intensely strange and strongly fascinating.

Marrakesh boasts no aristocracy: it is a city of the people. It has few

Shar[=i]fs: it is a land of "traders," speculating, toiling, intriguing;

between its yellow adobe walls, and its whitewashed dazzling walls,

amidst its dense metallic semi-tropical vegetation, up and down its sandy

silent ways, they live and die. Its fountains are beautiful:

_Shrab-u-Schuf_ (Drink and admire) is inscribed on one of them. But it is

not by its architecture that Marrakesh stands and falls; rather by a

personality all its own--by its many ruined walls, by its deserted

streets, by the hot pulse of life throbbing imperiously through its

arteries crowded to suffocation with humanity, by its flaring African

sunlight, by the figures which can never be other than picturesque, by a

thousand impressions which can never die. And by reason of all this

Marrakesh is great.

Once upon a time it was impossible for an Englishman to see the Slave

Market. Owing partly to the radical hatred of Europeans, partly to the

suspicious and seclusive nature of the Moor, the presence of foreigners

in the sacred Slave Market was tabooed. Not that the Nazarene was "taken

up" or turned back if he showed his face inside the courtyard: on the

contrary, he was allowed to walk in, and apparently no eye was aware of

his presence. And yet in a few moments he would find himself alone. The

Slave Market had vanished, had melted away: a line of disappearing backs

was all which was to be seen. Supposing a Moor had connived at this

attempt on the part of a Nazarene to see slaves being sold, that Moor

disappeared, by order of the Sultan, and there was a funeral later on in

the day.

However, while we were in Marrakesh, less rigorous orders were in vogue.

Having come prepared to see the market disguised in native dress if

necessary, we found that we were able to go there without much

difficulty, and only escorted by one of the missionaries and a servant.

Though slaves are bought and sold through the length and breadth of

Morocco, it is not possible in any other city than Marrakesh for the

European to see or know much about it. In the coast towns the sales are

conducted privately. In Fez it is probable that they might be attended by

others than Moors; but at the time of writing I take it that no wise

European, if such should be there at all in these unquiet times, would

venture to put himself into a position likely to attract all the bullets

and knives in Fez in his direction.

Just at sunset--6.30, I think--the Slave Market in Marrakesh opens, and

we went in. To some ears it would no doubt have sounded the strangest

anomaly, that prayer to the Most High God, with which the sale was

prefaced; but a Mussulman hallows every action, right or wrong, with a

petition; besides which slavery is lawful and good in his eyes, is

approved of and permitted by Mohammed in the written book of the

Kor[=a]n; is, in short, a part of the scheme of Nature which it were a

serious mistake not to use and enjoy. So the line of auctioneers formed

up, held out their hands, prayed, invoked a blessing over the

proceedings, mumbling in sonorous tones for a few moments. Then silence.

It was over: the sale began. There is nothing more easy than to be

theatrical and emotional in describing scenes of this sort--one has read

of them scores of times: words such as "degrading" and "harrowing" rise

up in the mind's eye, coupled with violent epithets and stinging clauses.

And yet, finding oneself in the centre of another just such a scene, one

realized how impossible the thing was, to understand, or to feel,

beforehand, and how curiously it played upon the emotions. Walking into

the market with a sobriety, with a cold, critical interest such as a Nero

may have felt towards his victims, one divined early in the proceedings

that the scene tended unduly to intensify emotion. Truly no men think

alike: a vast chasm yawns between the natures of the slave-trader and the

European: that chasm is a universal education. To realize all which

separates a native of Africa from a Frenchman or an Englishman, and the

difficulties which lie in the way of promoting an understanding between

the two, visit such a place as the Slave Market in Marrakesh.

Groups of slaves, more or less gorgeously dressed, some in rags where

nothing better could be afforded, were sitting far back in little

covered-in recesses which lined the square. All round the square stood,

or sat upon their heels, intending purchasers, for the most part

middle-aged elderly men, sleek and fat, in turbans and soft linen, white

beyond reproach. Each auctioneer, the prayer over, advanced to the groups

of slaves, and led out one or perhaps two or three, and paraded them

round and round the square under the eyes of the buyers. At last a bid

was made: the auctioneer walked on, pushing the slaves in front of him,

and calling out the amount of the bid. A higher bid was made: he shouted

out that bid, and still walked on. Then a purchaser signed to him that he

wished to look at the slaves. The auctioneer at once marshalled the women

or woman slave (there were many more women than men) up to the Moor who

wished to examine her. She squatted in front of him, while he looked at

her teeth, felt her arms, neck, and legs, and in a low voice asked her a

string of private questions. After a time the woman was allowed to get

up, the auctioneer called out the latest bid for her, and walked her on.

Probably some one else would examine her "points," and another and

another; and her price would go up till the auctioneer should have got

what he wanted, and the woman would be handed over to her new master.

Some of the slaves walked round with a profoundly indifferent air--none

of them looked in wild spirits; but, on the other hand, it was "Kismet"

rather than misery which was written on their faces. It is a rare thing

for any slave to object violently or to make any scene: as a rule they

knelt down obediently enough in front of the fat Mohammedans, who thrust

their fingers into their mouths, took them by the chin, and treated them

with great familiarity. But, oddly enough, on one of the nights we

attended the market a scene did occur. A middle-aged woman, absolutely

refused to walk round--we were told probably because she had been parted

from her child, and could not bear to be sold. The poor creature wept

wildly, and hid her face in the red cloth round her head. She was,

however, in the end forced along like a recalcitrant mule, her cloth

torn off, herself made to kneel down at the bidding of a group of

traders, and undergo the usual examination. Some of the young girls

looked shame-faced, shuffling along behind or in front of the auctioneers

with bent heads. The sad middle-aged woman fetched in the end seven

pounds ten shillings. A little child was going for three pounds ten. A

girl of thirteen--that is, at her very best--was selling for fifteen

pounds: she was of course unusually attractive.

The slave trade of Africa receives an apparent stamp of legality from the

fact that religious warfare and the taking of prisoners in war and making

them slaves are looked upon as Divine institutions. There is no

obligation on the Mussulman to release slaves, and as long as wars and

raids last, the mass of slaves in Mohammedan countries tends rather to

increase than otherwise, their progeny ever adding to the original

number. There is no restriction as to the number of slaves or concubines

which a Moor may have: it entirely depends upon his purse. His women are

his luxury, and an expensive one. A concubine may be sold at any moment,

and the position is thus precarious and varied: it has one saving clause,

which I have already explained--the woman who bears a son to her master

is free, and at his death his property will be divided between the sons

of concubines equally with the sons of his wife and wives. Mussulman

raids still continue against the negroes of Central Africa, against

tribes in Persia, in Afghanistan, and other parts of the world; indeed,

as long as Mohammedanism lasts, there is very little chance of the

abolition of slavery.

[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]

THE WAD-EL-AZELL.

[_To face p. 334._]

One afternoon we went over the garden belonging to the late basha of

Marrakesh--Ben Dowd--almost the only garden I have ever seen in Morocco

which had in it flowers; and these were roses from Spain, valuable and

beautiful, the pride of the basha. There was a charming summer-house half

built, and a conservatory nearly finished, in different parts of the

garden. In the midst of his prosperity, only eight months before, Ben

Dowd had been arrested and put into prison. It was the old tale of

jealousy. The Grand Wazeer was afraid of the basha, and in order to

secure himself from harm succeeded in having Ben Dowd deposed and put

entirely out of harm's way. Though an explanation is always forthcoming

for violent proceedings such as the above, it would be unwise to assume

in Morocco that the explanation had a grain of truth in it. Wheels within

wheels; intrigue after intrigue; lie, topped by lie, make up the sum of

Moorish diplomacy, and render the coil of politics in that country an

absolutely fascinating study, not because it is so surreptitious, but

because it is clever as well as cunning, and all the time involves bigger

interests than ever appear on the tapis--interests which concern France,

Austria, England, Germany, and other Powers, all of whom struggle for a

finger in the seething pie.

To return to Ben Dowd. He was "detained" in a house--not ignominiously

committed to the common gaol, an unusual respite--allowed twelve

shillings a day, and his wife's company. He was in Fez with these

restrictions at the time we were looking over his gardens; and half of

his wives were left behind at his own house, costing him a pound a day,

we were told, in the face of which his allowance seemed inadequate.

When the Government seized him, no money was found in his house; but

three hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods in the shape of carpets,

mirrors, gilt bedsteads, etc., were confiscated. His post, however, is

still vacant: he is a good man, and possibly the Government will repent

of its hasty step, and in due time restore such a valuable servant to

favour. On the other hand, Ben Dowd may be ruined for life.

The bashas and kaids of Morocco were all gnashing their teeth, while we

were at Marrakesh, over the new system of taxation, which the Sultan and

a certain progressive member of his Government, are endeavouring to

introduce into the country. The main idea in these new regulations is,

that governors will be paid specified salaries by the Government--that

they will collect taxes as usual, but send the amount of money collected

intact to Court, not, as has been the custom hitherto, docking off the

half, it may be, and pocketing it as their own pay. Again, each province

has been lately inspected by a certain number of trustworthy men, who

have fixed its rate of taxation. The countryman is to pay so much upon

his possessions--for example, ninepence for a cow, three shillings for a

horse, twopence-halfpenny for an olive-tree, three shillings for a camel,

no more and no less--instead of having the utmost squeezed out of him,

which has been the practice of the governors up till now.

The scheme sounds excellent. A letter has been read aloud in every city

and country market-place, apprising the people of the new law, and they

are delighted in proportion, but scarcely believe that the Government

will be strong enough to enforce it. Indeed, it is hardly probable that

the new taxation system can succeed unless two important steps are first

taken--the tribes must be disarmed, and a new set of governors be

appointed to take the place of the old. As long as the tribesmen are

armed, there can never be law and order, any more than there can be

settled peace upon the Indian frontier under the same conditions. At one

moment the tribes will side with the Government, at another they will

take the part of a governor, at another they will attack a neighbouring

tribe. It is all very well to tax such men justly and to treat them like

civilized beings, instead of trampling them underfoot, preventing their

becoming rich, and holding them to be ignorant devils; but they are not

civilized, unfortunately--they have not sufficient education to know when

they are well off and to profit by it. Every man of them has a gun, and

bloodshed and plunder are life itself to him. Treat him well, he bides

his time, grows rich with the rest of his tribe; together they descend

upon their neighbours, avenge an old wrong, loot to their hearts'

content, perhaps attack the Sultan himself. But disarm one and all such

men, and in the far future a peaceable agricultural folk may reign in

their stead. It would be a work of time, but it has been effected before

in the annals of history.

The second condition, which would go far towards the working of the new

system of taxation, is the appointment of new governors. The salary which

the governors are to receive, is a comparatively small one, compared with

the vast sums which they have been in the habit of accumulating, by means

of extortion and by defrauding the Government. It is hardly fair to

expect a man to cut down his expenses, give up half his wives, sell his

slaves, and fall in the estimation of those under him. The thing must

assuredly lead to dispute, born of peculation, and fighting must be the

inevitable result. But if, on the other hand, new men are appointed, who

from the first suit their expenditure to their means, a more peaceful

working basis will be established.

The old Oriental policy of the "balance of jealousies" will doubtless

play its useful part: that is to say, each governor will watch his

next-door neighbour like a cat watching a mouse; and if he detect any

underhand dealings, or evasions, or infringements of the new law, he will

report at once to the Sultan, and thereby gain _kudos_, perhaps a

substantial reward, for himself. In this way the Government may receive

support at the hands of the men whom it is keeping in order.

CHAPTER XII

THE THURSDAY MARKET--WE MIGHT HAVE GONE TO GLAOUIA--LEAVE MARRAKESH AND

SET OUT ON OUR LAST MARCH FOR THE COAST--FLOWERS IN MOROCCO--ON THE WRONG

TRAIL--ARAB TENTS--GOOD-BYE TO EL MOGHREB.

CHAPTER XII

The best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a

fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find

them. They are the end and the reward of life. They keep us

worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to

the absent.

THE great Thursday Market is one of those things in Marrakesh which, once

seen, is stamped deeper than a hundred other memories upon the mind. It

is held in a sun-baked open space outside the Gate of the Thursday

Market, just beyond the city walls, within view of the plains and a

distant low range of mountains. Thousands and thousands of tall palms,

groves of them, wave in the wind all over the surrounding country: a few

great watercourses, worn and eaten out of the red soil, burrow between

the forests on their way down to the great river.

To reach the market we rode out along a road thronged with people selling

all sorts of goods, from splendid old flintlock guns from the Sus chased

with silver and gold and going at three pounds, to striped carpets strong

and violent in colouring at seven-and-sixpence each, and second-hand

clothes of the most varied description. At last, topping a little hill,

we rode down into the market: it is, more correctly speaking, a horse

fair,--mules were also for sale. The horses down in the south are without

doubt very different from the poor little ponies bred up in the north;

but even these, in comparison, for instance, with a thoroughbred hunter

at home, fell far short of what my defective imagination had led me to

expect of Arab stallions in Morocco. For the most part there was nothing

for sale except great heavy brutes with small heads and proud arched

necks. Every one of them fell away in the hindquarters.

As usual the sale was prefaced by a prayer: hard bargaining, sharp

practice, and much or little swindling, inseparable from horse-dealing,

must all of it, first of all, be watered by prayer. Therefore the

horsemen formed into a line; the central figure chanted some verses from

the Kor[=a]n; the rest held out their hands palms upwards, then joined in

a sort of Amen, the instant afterwards sticking their spurs into their

horses and dashing forward, charging in a line over the plain between two

rows of spectators, and pulling the horses up on to their haunches at the

end, red with spur-marks and white with foam. This was repeated two or

three times, the short space in which the riders pulled up out of a full

gallop being sometimes almost incredible; then a great circle was formed

of would-be purchasers and onlookers, and the horses were ridden into the

circle and then round and round to display themselves, each rider at the

same time _auctioning his own horse_, yelling out the bids for it, as

they rose, at the top of his voice. When the last bid was made, and he

could get no more, the rider, after shouting the price, added that he

"would not consult the absent one," meaning thereby that the owner of the

horse, whether himself or not, would raise no objection to the animal's

being sold for that price. Unless this sentence had been pronounced, the

purchaser could not have been certain that the owner would not say

afterwards he did not intend to sell for that sum. Most of the horses

fetched from three pounds twelve to four pounds ten.

Mules were sold in the same way--the prayer, the parade round the circle,

each rider seated almost on his mule's tail, urging him on, with hands

and heels, to pace his best, the mule's nose up in the heavens. Some of

them were splendid animals, which I would have given anything to have

possessed--perfectly made, looking more intelligent than many humans, and

full of pluck and staying power: these fetched rather more than double,

what the best horse in the whole market sold for. But in criticising the

horses, I speak of what I saw on this occasion: there may be, and no

doubt are, fine arabs to be had in Southern Morocco--at least so I am

told--but I came across only what may be called "a cart-horse stamp."

And yet they look very fine, these same sensible-looking beasts, with

their great eyes, and flowing manes and tails, and proud carriage. There

is something, too, eternally fascinating in the beautiful seat of an Arab

on his horse--not of a fat sheikh or a rich basha or a thriving merchant,

but that of the lean and wiry Arab horseman born and bred, who, as he

thunders past at full gallop, puts himself into a dozen positions, is at

home in them all, shoots behind him, above him, below him, without

drawing rein, turning in any direction, while he makes the whole air ring

with his wild cries. The Moorish saddle of course helps his grip; but

beyond that, there is something cat-like in the lithe swing of his body,

and it is that body's right and natural function to be upon a horse. The

white turban, the flowing white garments, the gorgeously coloured saddle,

the great silvered stirrups, are all part of the whole--and an attractive

whole--born of the limitless desert, the great far-reaching sky, the

pure wind: it is Arabian, that is all--_and so much_.

Meanwhile, camels were selling in another corner of the market, being

made to lie down and rise and generally show themselves off: they were

fetching from three pounds ten upwards. Cows, goats, and sheep were less

interesting; but the throng of men which filled up the fair was, as ever,

more than a study. Above and beyond all, stood out the wild inhabitants

of the Atlas, and men from the Sus, wearing black camel's-hair jellabs

with a great russet-red or saffron-yellow patch let into the backs of

them. The origin of this striking "badge" is not known, but the jellabs

themselves looked absolutely in keeping with the lawless ruffians, on

whose shoulders they hung, and the wild blotch of bizarre colour was

"just themselves."

Bay, is the colour which in a horse the Moor chooses first--the pearl of

colours, sober and most hardy; while a light chestnut brings ill luck,

though a dark chestnut is the colour of the wind, can "travel," and was

Mohammed's favourite. A horse must have the colour of its saddle in

harmony with itself--an apple-green saddle for a black horse, scarlet for

a white, the whole beautifully worked and embossed in silk, and when on

the horse's back, should be set, perhaps, upon as many as _nine_

different coloured saddle-cloths, one on top of each other.

[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]

THE SULTAN'S GARDEN.

[_To face p. 344._]

Of all filthy quarters in the filthiest of cities, I think the Jewish

Quarter in Marrakesh has a fair chance of ranking first,--outside it,

rubbish, a manure-heap eighty feet high, which no one troubles to remove;

inside the walls, black mud, feet deep, streets which are sewers,

collections of dead dogs, rotting vegetables, refuse of all sorts;

amongst it all, a dirty people, callous beyond belief as regards

sanitation, with sore heads, sore eyes, matted rags. Not a butcher's

shop which is not black with flies and "high" with rotten meat: flies lie

upon every article of food.

And in the very vortex of this muck-heap--astounding to the

traveller--are content to live wealthy Jews, happy to flourish all their

lives shoulder to shoulder with unutterable squalor.

We went over a house belonging to a Jew millionaire, well built, lavishly

decorated, as luxurious as money and Morocco would permit, evidently the

pride of the whole family. Probably few of them went far outside the city

walls: they were born to the Mellah. His success as a trader might have

given the head of the house a country place in England, shady lawns, a

carriage and pair to drive in: he preferred his own muck-heap. But I

cannot conceive upon what he spent his money, other than the

glorification of the inside of his house.

The Sultan's palace looked deserted: it is long, however, since he left

it, and high time he was in Fez again; for Fez is more in touch with

Europe--Fez means a shade more progression and civilization than life in

Morocco City. Round the palace lay bales of goods which had been ordered

by him and sent out from England--things such as waggons, motor-cars

possibly, which are supposed so much to shock his narrow-minded subjects.

They imagine that his Shar[=i]fian Majesty wastes vast sums of money;

whereas for a great monarch, the ruler of an empire, his private bills

are probably absurdly small. He may have fireworks let off every night

for ten minutes, horrifying Marrakesh; but the cost of his amusements,

considering his position, must be curiously reasonable: so one

considered, as one looked at the "parcels" awaiting his return to the

capital, which lay in the immense courtyard outside his palace, where

"powder play" is held, and where he receives foreign ambassadors,

marching through the great gateway which leads to his own private rooms,

over which is inscribed in Arabic an odd sentence; it reads literally,

"What God wills: there is no power but God."

The days passed, and our time in Marrakesh drew to an end. In spite of

all that had been told us in Tangier, of the difficulties and dangers

which would attend an expedition into the Atlas Mountains, in spite of

the verdict that we should not be given a permit, should be "stopped and

not allowed to continue the journey," we found that, once upon the scene

of action, there would have been little difficulty in getting at least as

far as Glaouia, and in pushing up through one or two other passes.

The ride to Glaouia might take five or six days: there were several other

places and a district or two which would have been worth visiting ten

times over. The missionaries in Marrakesh were willing to make all

arrangements: one of them would have gone with us, and under that escort

it would have been possible to travel into the Atlas without risk. We

should have gone "privately," without troubling any one, without

formality; and in all probability no one would have troubled about us:

that, after all, is the only way to travel satisfactorily in Morocco, not

with half a dozen soldiers and a vast noise.

But for this year at any rate our travels in Morocco had reached their

limit. R. was not strong enough to face more marching: the hot sun, long

rides, and general "roughing it" had told upon her, and the

responsibility of taking her on farther afield, into remote regions of

uncertain climate, was too great.

[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]

THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH.

[_To face p. 346._]

Early one morning we set forth upon our last march, back again to the

coast, by the track which leads eventually to Mazagan, a seaport some

distance farther north than Mogador. Here we hoped to pick up a steamer,

and proceed, _viâ_ Tangier, across to Gibraltar, where it would be

possible to get a P. & O. boat and head for home.

The march to Mazagan was easy, and contained little incident. After

leaving the plains of Marrakesh and its waving palm-trees, and seeing the

tall Kutobea disappear at last, we found ourselves in the "Little

Mountains," and along the rough road began to fall in continually with

parties of tribesmen, Arab country people, all mounted, who had been

commandeered to accompany the Sultan as far as Fez, and who were now

coming back to their homes. Splendid bronzed fellows they were, dark

brick-dust colour, wrapped in long white cloaks, with the hood of an

under garment pulled down over their faces: sometimes a white cloth

swathed their heads; their chins were hidden in soft folds which reached

up to their hawk-eyes, veiling the face, like true sons of the desert, as

a protection against sun and wind. Guns were slung across their

shoulders: they wore long yellow riding-boots and spurs, with half a

dozen saddle-cloths; and all rode horses, strong little beasts, well

groomed, some hog-maned, but usually with great locks of hair sweeping

over their necks, and their tails almost touching the ground behind. On

grey or white countrybreds as a rule, they wound along the mountain path

in single file, these tall white-cloaked horsemen, in nowise differing

from their ancestors of a thousand years ago--Arabs of unbroken descent:

as they emerged from between the wild hills it would have been hard to

find a more picturesque sight.

One of the few peaceful camping-grounds between Marrakesh and Mazagan was

at a little distance outside an Arab village of about thirty little

pointed thatched huts, enclosed within a zareba of thorn-bushes: it was

called Smeera.

We camped near some trees and water: the fig-trees were full of crows,

which came in to roost in thousands, and The Little Owl (_Athene noctua_)

haunted the place. In the early half-light of the morning this

wise-looking little bird was found, when we awoke, to be sitting upon the

edge of the flap of the tent in the doorway, gazing in upon us with round

yellow eyes; nor was it the least nervous.

I recollect how, the evening before, there sat outside Smeera, as so

often may be seen outside the like villages, away beyond the huts and the

zareba, where it was very quiet, upon some flat grey stones, eight or

twelve village men--Arabs. Sitting there in the sunset, wrapped in their

white hooded mantles, this conclave of wise white owls, easily to be

mistaken for grey stones, so rigid are their backs--of what do they talk

as the hours go by? There is no joke nor song nor a drop of liquor going,

as in a "public," where our labourers at home would naturally congregate.

But this charmed circle sits on, staring into the west: the tall bearded

wheat rustles in the wind close to them; the illimitable plain stretches

away to the horizon, flat as their own uneventful lives; the sun drops

behind the soft straight line of Earth; they do not move,--wondrous

picturesque figures, long white folds, peaked hoods, sitting, their knees

drawn up to their chins, for how long? What is time to an Arab?

One evening our camel never turned up, and we fully expected to have had

to sleep without beds or any other of the night's usual adjuncts. We had

started that morning at seven, had ridden till twelve, had halted for an

hour and a half, starting again at half-past one, and riding till

half-past five; and all the way, after a mile out of Sok-el-Tleta, where

we watered the mules at a pond and the trail forked, we were on the wrong

road.

Only the man with the camel knew the Mazagan line of march thoroughly

well: he had explained it beforehand to Omar. Omar made a mistake, and

the camel and attendants were behind ourselves. However, news travels

oddly fast in uncivilized countries, and the camel-driver heard after a

time that the "advance squadron" was on the wrong trail. He set out after

us, and ran and walked, and caught us at three o'clock in the afternoon.

The wretched camel followed his steps all the way, with Mulai Ombach in

charge of our baggage, three donkeys, and a boy, who were afraid of being

cut off from us, and dared not risk a night by themselves. The

camel-driver put us right, Omar and Saïd were well cursed, and we began a

toilsome journey across rough country, hoping to hit the right trail in

time.

We found ourselves in the wildest and dirtiest of Arab encampments now

and again, where infuriated dogs, unaccustomed to visitors, rushed out

and almost bit us upon our mules, amidst a hail of stones from Omar and

Saïd. A valley luxuriating knee-deep in flowers--the Flower Valley we

called it--was the one redeeming feature of that march. There are certain

times for seeing the wild flowers in Morocco--perhaps April in the south

is the best month: so far we had not been as much struck by them as

report would lead one to expect. And yet they were most beautiful.

Picture corn-fields full of love-in-a-mist; orchards of fig-trees, with

the grass ablaze with golden pyrethrums; red mallow standing up in the

barley; the ground carpeted with blue-and-white convolvulus; masses of

carmine-coloured convolvulus densely festooned over the thorn-hedges; on

the barest, stoniest of soil stretches of cistus, pale pink to faded

mauve; asphodels everywhere; sometimes the wild spring form of the

cultivated artichoke, the small variety of the ice-plant, the larkspur,

the lupin, and several varieties of lavender. All these we met with, over

and over again: rarer plants were to be found for the looking. R.

collected specimens of them all, to be classified by the authorities at

Kew Gardens on our return.

The Flower Valley yielded one or two which we had not seen before, and we

would have lingered there, but that time was precious and we had no

notion of our exact whereabouts. It was a case of going on and on and

meeting no one: evening began to draw near, and still we were off the

right track, while our baggage might be anywhere. There was nothing for

it but to push forward and trust to luck: in time we cut into innumerable

little paths, which snaked side by side in the same direction across the

plain, pointing towards the coast, and these we surmised to be the trail

to Mazagan, which proved to be correct. But at that moment, though we

were anything but certain, it had become absolutely necessary to halt for

the night. It was dark, and the mules were done. An Arab village lay on a

hillside not far off, and we made for it.

Omar and Saïd had with them on their mules our tent and two or three

necessaries for cooking: we had therefore a roof over our heads, and in

time a fire was made, odds and ends were scraped up, and we ate a meal of

sorts sitting on the ground beside a candle stuck on a stone. The night

grew very cold: there was, however, a bit of thin carpet, which we

proposed to wrap ourselves in to sleep. Now and then one of us looked out

between the flaps of the tent into the darkness and watched--a case of

"Sister Ann! Sister Ann! do you see any one coming?"

[Illustration: ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL.

[_To face p. 350._]

We had, however, grown tired of looking out, and were just arranging

ourselves on the ground, when familiar noises sounded outside, and

Omar's voice crying joyfully, "Le chameau arrive!"

Perhaps, above all else which was interesting on the road to Mazagan, the

little Arab settlements, composed entirely of tents, interested us most.

In them, was lived the truly nomad, gipsy life of the wandering Arab, who

is a herdsman by heritage, and in following that vocation _a roamer par

excellence_. They live, these Arabs, in tents: the sides are made of

straw and wattle hurdles; over the top is stretched an immense piece of

brown or black camel's-hair cloth. The tents are barely five feet high in

the middle, less at the edges: squat brown mushrooms they look, or

something like the keels of boats turned bottom upwards. All of them were

open in front, "very public" the world would say; which primitive and

open-air mode of living was indeed their great feature. Some of them were

divided off down the middle by a hurdle, thus forming two "rooms": the

hurdles were occasionally faggots, without straw. Around the tents lay

the flocks, chewing the cud or browsing on the scanty grass-land:

children ran out to us with bowls of milk: when the grass gave out within

reach all round, the tents were taken down, the hillsides deserted, and

the families wandered in search of pastures new, carrying a few chickens,

some pots and pans, two or three bundles of rags, and leaving behind a

good many parasites and a bare patch.

Thus Arab life in Southern Morocco--a thriftless, desultory existence,

yet with the charm of continual change and of living with the earth. "To

take no thought for the morrow" is the practice of all Moors, whether

Arabs or Berbers: no Moor spends money on anything which will not bring

him in immediate profit, and this accounts for the fact that trees and

forests are never planted, or schemes started for working mines, or

roads made, or bridges built; even if the capital were forthcoming, what

would be the use of spending money only to be repaid little by little,

year by year?--a man may die before he profits for all his trouble!

After all, argues the Moor, who could wish to alter Morocco? Is it not

perfect as it is?--veritably, "_the tail of the peacock_," the sun of the

universe!

Its very imperfections are among those things which in this fanatical

Mohammedan land so fascinate the traveller. Its sad colours, its air

steeped in mystery, its courtly unknowable people, its wild tribes, its

white shut houses, its concealed women, its mad fanaticism, its

magnificent stoicism--one and all are sufficient to hold the European,

and to call him back again long after El Moghreb has forgotten his face.

Another of those chains has been forged which bind certain places and

certain countries to a soul, each henceforth belonging the one to the

other, and each gaining a little something thereby; nor can the links of

these chains be broken, since unseen possessions, such as they, are among

those things which no power on earth can touch, which can neither be

given nor taken away.

It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun,

Or South to the blind Horn's hate;

Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,

Or West to the Golden Gate,

Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,

And the wildest tales are true,

And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail;

And life runs large on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

A SELECTION FROM

MESSRS. HUTCHINSON & CO.'S

NEW BOOKS.

_A Work on Arctic Exploration of International Importance._

ON THE "POLAR STAR"

IN THE ARCTIC SEA.

By H.R.H. the DUKE OF THE ABRUZZI.

The Story of the First Italian Expedition to the North Pole.

Translated by WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

_In 2 handsome volumes, with over 200 Illustrations in the Text, and with

Full-page Photogravure Plates, Panoramas, Maps, etc._, 42s. _net._

* * * * *

_An Important New Work by a Most Successful Biographer._

THE SAILOR KING:

William IV., his Court and his Subjects.

By FITZGERALD MOLLOY.

Author of "The Queen's Comrade," "The Gorgeous Lady Blessington," etc.

_In 2 volumes, cloth gilt, with 16 Full-page Illustrations, including 2

Photogravure Plates_, 24s. _net._

* * * * *

_A Deeply Interesting and Superbly Illustrated Work._

WARWICK CASTLE AND ITS EARLS.

From Saxon Times to the Present Day.

By the COUNTESS OF WARWICK.

_In 2 large volumes, cloth gilt and gilt top_, 32s. _net. With about 150

Illustrations, including Photogravure Portraits of the present Earl and

Countess of Warwick_.

* * * * *

_The Biography of a Great Diplomatist._

THE LIFE OF THE

MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA.

By C. E. BLACK.

_In 1 large handsome volume, cloth gilt, fully illustrated,_ 16s. _net._

* * * * *

CELEBRITIES AND I.

By HENRIETTE CORKRAN.

_In cloth gilt_, 16s. _net_.

"Hardly one of the 362 pages lacks its illuminative anecdote. A

delightful browsing field."--_Outlook._

"Written in a bright vivacious manner. Her criticisms and

appreciations are shrewd and spontaneous. The volume forms very

agreeable reading."--_Daily Telegraph._

"Decidedly entertaining, and, moreover, not without a certain

measure of instructiveness."--_Globe._

"Will be drawn upon for its many anecdotes at hundreds of dinner

tables during the winter."--_Leeds Mercury._

"Miss Henriette Corkran shows the way as a writer of

reminiscences. A charming volume."--_World._

"Possesses in a high degree the power to charm and

attract."--_Liverpool Courier._

* * * * *

_A Famous Writer and her Work._

MARIE CORELLI:

The Writer and the Woman.

By T. F. G. COATES,

Author of "The Life of Lord Rosebery,"

AND

R. S. WARREN BELL,

Author of "Bachelorland," etc.

_In cloth gilt and gilt top, with numerous Illustrations_, 6s.

* * * * *

MEMOIRS OF A SOCIAL ATOM

By W. E. ADAMS.

_In 2 large handsome volumes, cloth gilt_, 24s. _net_.

* * * * *

SIDE LIGHTS ON THE COURT OF FRANCE.

By LT.-COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, D.S.O.

_In 1 handsome cloth gilt volume_, 12s.

* * * * *

ROYAL PALACES AND THEIR MEMORIES.

By SARAH A. TOOLEY.

_In 1 large handsome volume, cloth gilt,_ 16s. _net._

With 48 Full-page Plates and a Photogravure Frontispiece.

"Mrs. Tooley serves up her vast amount of information in a most

attractive manner. The book is sent out in a beautiful dress, and

the printing is in keeping with the cover."--_St. James's

Gazette._

"The scheme of the work is distinctly a good one, and it has been

carried out with a persevering industry and careful research

which entitle the author to no small measure of praise. An

extremely handsome and profusely illustrated volume."--_World._

* * * * *

THE WOBURN LIBRARY OF NATURAL HISTORY.

Edited by his Grace the DUKE OF BEDFORD, K.G.

(President of the Zoological Society of London).

_Each volume in crown 4to, handsome cloth gilt and gilt top, fully

illustrated with Coloured and other Plates,_ 12s. 6d. _net._

THE FIRST VOLUME NOW READY.

WILD FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY SIDE.

By F. E. HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.,

Author of "Familiar Wild Flowers," etc.

_With 36 Fine Coloured Plates by the Author._

"A charming book, illustrated with very attractive drawings. A

very pleasing and interesting volume."--_Spectator._

* * * * *

OTHER VOLUMES IN THE PRESS.

BRITISH MAMMALS.

By Sir HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G.,

Author of "The Uganda Protectorate."

_With 16 Coloured Plates from Drawings by the Author, and with many other

Illustrations from the Author's Drawings and from Photographs._

* * * * *

BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISH.

By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., F.R.S.,

Author of "Salmon and Sea Trout."

_With numerous Coloured Plates and other Illustrations._

* * * * *

NEW SIX-SHILLING NOVELS.

_Each in cloth gilt._

* * * * *

ALAIN TANGER'S WIFE. By J. H. VOXALL, M.P.

"The interest is infectious; there is no denying the charm of the

story."

DAILY MAIL.

FERELITH. By LORD KILMARNOCK.

"An entirely new plot, and assuredly one of the most startling

ones ever invented. The tale itself is told with a quiet dignity

and restraint."--_Newcastle Leader._

SOULS. By "RITA."

"Brightly and cleverly written; full of amusing episodes and

dialogue."--_Daily Telegraph._

THE SEVEN SECRETS. By WM. LE QUEUX.

"No reader can fail to admire the ingenuity with which Mr. W. Le

Queux has constructed the plot of his latest novel, the secret of

which is admirably preserved."--_Manchester Guardian._

THE GOLDEN KINGDOM. By ANDREW BALFOUR.

"Mr. Balfour proves himself in 'The Golden Kingdom' to be a

capital storyteller. He is a Stevensonian both in matter and in

manner, but with considerable ingenuity of his own in devising

situations, and considerable ability in the developing and

setting forth of a tale of romantic adventure."--_Athenæum._

THE LADY OF THE CAMEO. By TOM GALLON.

THE ETERNAL WOMAN. By DOROTHEA GERARD.

CHASMA. By H. W. G. HYRST.

A PARSON'S LASS. By GODFREY BURCHETT.

THE VICE-CHANCELLOR'S WARD. By CHRISTIAN TEARLE.

THE MAN WITH THE WOODEN FACE. By MRS. FRED REYNOLDS.

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

2. This text contains diacritical marks and symbols, where possible these

are represented in the text by the following symbols.

Diacritical mark above below

-------------------------- ------ ------

macron (straight line) [=x] [x=]

3. List of corrections:

Page 24, "colourness" changed to "colourless"

Page 37, "venalty" changed to "venality"

Page 57, "matresses" changed to "mattresses"

Page 58, "exemple" changed to "example"

Page 70, "Hillali" changed to "Hilalli"

Page 94, "a.m." changed to "p.m."

Page 187, "Morocoo" changed to "Morocco"

Page 197, "trumpter" changed to "trumpeter"

Page 255, "farthur" changed to "farther"

Page 262, "staple" changed to "stable"

Page 324, "floor" changed to "flour"

Page 345, "votex" changed to "vortex"

Page 346, "dozon" changed to "dozen"

End of Project Gutenberg's In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory