We started for Zeguta at an early hour in the morning, cheered by the thought that that day we should see the mountains of Fez. A light autumnal breeze was blowing, and a slight mist veiled the prospect. A throng of Arabs muffled in their mantles looked on as we left the camp; the soldiers of the escort kept together in a compact body; the children of the duar watched us with sleepy eyes over the hedges and from the tents. But soon the sun shone out, the horsemen scattered, the air resounded with shots and yells, every thing became full of color, light, and animation, and immediately, as happens in that country, to the chill of autumn succeeded the ardent heat of summer.

Among my notes of that morning I find one which says, laconically, “Locusts.” I remember to have noticed a distant field which appeared to be moving, and perceived that the appearance was produced by a vast number of green grasshoppers which were advancing toward us in great jumps. Selim, who was riding at my side, gave me an admirably picturesque description of the invasion of these formidable insects, and I remember it word for word; but I cannot render the effect of his gesture, voice, and look, which were more expressive than his words. “It is a terrible thing, sir! They come from there (pointing toward the south). A black cloud. You can hear the noise from afar off. They advance and advance, and they have their Sultan, the Sultan Jeraad, who guides them. They cover roads and fields, houses, duars, and woods. The cloud grows and grows, and comes and comes and comes, and eats and eats and eats, passes rivers, passes walls, passes fires; destroys grass, flowers, leaves, fruit, grain, bark of trees, and goes and goes. Nothing stays it, neither the tribe with fire, nor the Sultan with all his army, nor all the people of Morocco gathered together. Heaps of locusts dead; forward the living locusts! Ten die, a hundred are born! A hundred die, a thousand are born! Roads covered, gardens covered, sea-shore covered; all green, all in motion, alive, dead, smell, plague, famine, the 'curse of heaven!’” So indeed it is. The horrid smell that emanates from myriads of dead locusts sometimes produces contagious fevers, and, to cite one example, the terrible pestilence that depopulated in 1799 the cities and country of Barbary broke out after one of their invasions. When the advanced guard of their devastating army appears, the Arabs go to meet it in squads of four or five hundred with sticks and fire; but they succeed only in turning it a little from its road, and it often happens that one tribe turning it aside toward the territory of another, war against the locusts is suddenly turned into civil war. The only force that can liberate the country from this scourge is a favorable wind which drives them into the sea, where they are drowned, and are thrown afterward in heaps upon the coast; and the only comfort the inhabitants can take when the favorable wind is wanting, is to eat their enemies, which they do, before they have deposited their eggs, boiled, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar. They have the flavor of shrimps, and as many as four hundred can be eaten in a day.

At about two miles from the camp we rejoined a part of the caravan that was carrying to Fez the presents from Victor Emanuel.^[4] There were camels in pairs, one behind the other, with two long poles suspended from the crupper, on which the cases were carried. Some Arabs on foot, and mounted soldiers, accompanied them. At the head of the caravan was a cart drawn by two bullocks; the first cart we saw in Morocco! It was made at Laracce on purpose, after the pattern, I believe, of the first vehicle that ever appeared on the earth—a heavy deformed body, upon two wheels all of one piece, without spokes; the strangest and most ridiculous affair that can be imagined. But to the natives, the most of whom had never seen a cart, it was a wonder. They came from all sides to see it, pointed it out to one another, followed and preceded it, and talked about it with excited gestures. Meantime our mules, unused to such an object, gave signs of surprise, and planting themselves on their four legs refused to pass it. Selim himself regarded it with complacency, as if he said to himself, “It was made in our country.” And he was excusable, since in all Morocco there exist about as many carts as pianofortes, which latter, if I may believe the assertion of the French Consul, are about a dozen; and also it seems that there is in that country a national antipathy against every kind of vehicle. The authorities of Tangiers, for example, prohibited Prince Frederic of Hesse Darmstadt, who was in that city in 1839, from going out in a carriage. The Prince wrote to the Sultan, offering to pave the principal street at his own expense, if he would permit what the authorities denied him. “I permit it,” answered the Sultan, “and willingly; but on one condition, that the carriage shall be without wheels; because, being protector of the faithful, I cannot expose my subjects to be crushed by a Christian.” And the prince, in order to make the thing ridiculous, availed himself of the permission with the conditions, and there are still at Tangiers persons who remember having seen him going about the city in a carriage without wheels, suspended between two mules.

We arrived at last at those blessed hills which we had been looking forward to for three days with impatient longing. After a long climb we entered a narrow gorge, called in Arabic Ben-Tinca, where we were obliged to pass one by one, and came out upon a beautiful flowery valley, quite solitary, where the escort scattered gaily, filling the air with songs and cries of joy.

At the bottom of the valley we met another escort from the territory of the military colonies, which took the place of the former one.

They were about one hundred horsemen, some very old and some very young, black, and hairy; some were mounted on stupendous horses, caparisoned with great pomp. The caid, Abu-Ben-Gileli, was a robust old man, of severe aspect and reserved manners.

At a certain moment the Ambassador and the captain, accompanied by Hamed Ben-Kasen and a few soldiers, left the caravan to ascend a mountain called Selfat, a few miles distant; the rest of us continued on the regular route.

A short time after their departure there came toward us an Arab boy of sixteen or eighteen years of age, and almost naked, driving before him with a stick two unwilling oxen.

The caid, Abu-Ben-Gileli, stopped his horse, and called him. We learned afterward that this boy was to attach his oxen to the cart that we had seen, and was several hours behind his time.

The poor lad, all trembling, presented himself before the caid. The latter asked some questions, to which the boy replied, stammering, and pale as a corpse.

Then the caid turned toward the soldiers, and said, coldly, “Fifty bastonate.”

Three robust men sprang from their horses. The poor young fellow, without a word, without even lifting his eyes to the face of his judge, threw himself face downward on the ground, according to the custom, with arms and legs stretched out.

It all happened in a moment. The stick was yet in the air, when the Commandant and others had sprung forward, and declared that the brutal punishment could not be permitted. The caid bowed his head. The lad rose from the ground, pale and convulsed, looking with an expression of astonishment and terror from his preservers to the caid.

“Go,” said the interpreter; “you are free!”

“Oh!” he cried, with an indescribable accent, and vanished. We resumed our march. I have seen a man killed, but never have I experienced so profound a feeling of horror as that which assailed me at the sight of that half-naked boy stretched on the ground to receive his fifty blows with a stick. And after the horror, my blood rushed to my face with indignation against the caid, the Sultan, Morocco, and barbarism. But it is true that second thoughts are best. After a moment, I thought—and we, how many years is it since we abolished the stick? How many since it was in use in Austria, in Prussia, and in others of the European States? This reflection calmed my anger, and left me only a sentiment of bitterness. If any one wants to know in what fashion the bastinado is carried on in Morocco, it is enough to say that sometimes, the operation over, the victim is carried to the cemetery.

From thence to Zeguta the caravan passed from hill to hill, from valley to valley, through fields of grain and barley, and verdant plains surrounded by aloes, cactus, wild olive, dwarf oaks, arbutus, myrtle, and other flowering shrubs. We saw no living soul nor any tents. The country was solitary, silent, and all overgrown, like an enchanted garden. Coming to a rising ground we saw the blue summits of the mountains of Fez suddenly appearing, as if they had thrust up their heads to look at us; and at the hottest time in the day we reached Zeguta.

It proved to be one of the most beautiful of the places we had yet seen. The tents were pitched on the slope of a hill in a large rocky cavity, in the form of an amphitheatre, around the sides of which the accidents of the ground and the passage of men and animals had formed something resembling rows of seats or steps, which at that time were swarming with Arabs seated in a semicircle as if looking on at a spectacle. In front a broad valley of shell-like form opened with all its lovely variety of color, according to the cultivation, in squares of green, yellow, red, violet, and white, like a great chess-board made of silk and velvet. With the glass could be seen, on the more distant hills, here a string of tents, there a white cuba among the aloe plants; beyond, a camel, a crouching Arab, cattle, a group of women—a life so still and scattered that it threw into relief the profound peacefulness of the scene better than complete solitude could have done. And over all this beauty was spread a white and burning sky that dazzled the eyes and obliged one to stand with drooping head.

But I remember the encampment at Zeguta less for its beauty than for an experiment we made there with the famous kif.

Kif, for those who do not know it, is the leaf of a kind of hemp, called hashish, known all over the East for its intoxicating quality. It is much in use in Morocco, and it may be said that all those Moors and Arabs who are met in the streets of the cities, dragging themselves about, and looking with a dull, stupefied expression, like men who have just had a blow on the head, are victims of this deleterious drug. The greater part of them smoke it, mixed with a little tobacco, in small clay pipes; others eat it in the form of a sweetmeat called madjun, made of butter, honey, nutmeg, and cloves. The effects of it are most curious. Doctor Miguerez, who had tried it, often told me about it, saying, among other things, that he had been seized with a fit of irresistible laughter, and that he imagined himself to be lifted from the ground, so that passing under a lofty archway, he had stooped his head for fear of striking it. Stimulated by curiosity, I had more than once asked him to give me a dose of madjun—a little, not enough to make me lose my wits, but enough to let me experience at least one or two of the wonders that he related. The good doctor at first excused himself, declaring that it was better to try it at Fez; but he yielded at last to my entreaties, and the experiment was made at Zeguta, where, much against his will, he finally presented me with the wished-for morsel on a small plate. We were at table, and, if I am not mistaken, the two artists shared it with me, but I do not remember how it affected them. It was a soft paste of a violet color, and smelt like pomatum. For about half an hour, from the soup to the fruit, I felt nothing, and chaffed the doctor for his timidity. But he only said, “Wait a bit!” and smiled. Presently I was conscious of a feeling of great hilarity, and knew that I was talking very quickly. Then I laughed at every thing that others said, or that I said myself; every word seemed to me the purest wit and humor; I laughed at the servants, at my companions, at the figures on the plates, at the forms of the bottles, at the color of the cheese I was eating. Suddenly I was aware that my wits were wandering, and I tried to fix my thoughts upon something serious. I thought of the boy who was to have been bastinadoed in the morning. Poor boy! I was moved with compassion. I should have liked to take him to Italy, educate him, give him a career. I loved him like a son. And the caid, too, Abu-Ben-Gileli, poor old man! I loved the caid like a father. And the soldiers of the escort!—all good fellows, ready to defend me, to risk their lives for me. I loved them like brothers. I loved the Algerines also, and why not? I thought; are they not of the same race?—and what a race! We are all brothers; we ought to love each other; and I threw my arms round the neck of the doctor, who was laughing. From this delight I suddenly fell into a deep and vague melancholy. I remembered the persons whom I had offended, the pain I had inflicted on those who loved me, and was oppressed by poignant remorse and regret; I seemed to hear voices in my ears speaking in tones of loving reproach; I repented, I asked pardon, I furtively wiped away big tears that were in my eyes. Then there rose in my mind a crowd of strange and contrasted images that vanished as quickly as they came; forgotten friends of my childhood, words of a dialect unused for twenty years, faces of women, my old regiment, William the Silent, Paris, my publisher Barbera, a beaver hat that I had when I was a boy, the Acropolis at Athens, the bill of an innkeeper at Seville, and a thousand other absurdities. I remember confusedly the amused looks of my companions at table. From time to time I closed my eyes, and opened them again, unconscious of the passage of time, and ignorant whether I had slept or not. My thoughts sparkled and went out like fire-flies, intricate and inextricable. At one moment I saw Ussi with his face lengthened like a reflection in a convex mirror; the vice-consul, with his visage a foot in breadth; all the others attenuated, swollen, contorted, like fantastic caricatures, making the most impossible grimaces; and I laughed, and wagged my head, and dreamed, and thought that they were all crazy, that we were in another world, that what I saw was not true, that I was ill, that I could not understand what had happened, that I did not know where I was. Then all was darkness and silence. When I came to myself I was in my tent, stretched on the bed, and the doctor, standing beside me with a candle in his hand, was saying, with a smile, “It is over; but let it be the last, as it was the first.”