Though not so sanguine as Lutaif, as to the emollient powers of his epistle, I was pleased to find that for the first time, next morning, we received ample supplies of food, baskets of grapes and oranges, and for the first time people spoke to us without an air of breaking some command.

During the morning a miserable bundle of rags arrived and stood before our tent, asking in broken Arabic if we were the Christians, and on being answered in the affirmative broke out into French. It appeared he was a French deserter from Algeria, having deserted in Ain Sefra, [212] walked to Figig, and pretended to turn Mohammedan, he came by Tafilet, and was about to make his way down to the coast. This, as he said, was his itinerary, but why he should have come round by Tafilet, he did not explain. He certainly was not a personable man; a weasel-faced, pale, and fair-haired Parisian “voyou,” thin, active, and half-starved, foot-sore and weary, dressed in rags, and speaking a jargon of bad Arabic, compared to which that spoken by the Persian and myself became as the language of the Khoreish, or the best literal Arabic which Cairo boasts. He told us that he slept in the mosques, making the profession of his faith if there was any doubt about him before going in; this with a wink, and “Sont-ils bÊtes, ces Arabes, À la fin!” After he had eaten and smoked, he said that it was common in Algeria for soldiers to desert, adopt the Arab dress, and make their way into Morocco; some reached the coast, but many disappeared, murdered by the tribesmen or the villagers upon the way. Withal a merry knave, relating how he had served in a Spahi regiment during the war in Madagascar, and that the Arab troopers, when the war broke out, talked of the war with Madame Casba, [213a] and thought she was Sultana of some island, who was fighting with the French. Although he had no arms or money, he did not seem afraid, but trusted to arrive in Mogador or Saffi in a few weeks’ time. We went to bathe and left him smoking under a tree with Swani, talking a mixture of Arabic and French: on our return in half an hour, thinking to see him still before the tent, and make him tell us what he had seen in his long tramp, we found that, without a word to anyone, he had slunk mysteriously away.

Once in Morocco city I met three Englishmen dressed in the red baize rags which form the uniform of the Sherifian troops. Where they came from they did not say, but wanted money to buy magia [213b] and tobacco; I gave them something, and on receiving it with not too laboured thanks, they too mixed with the crowd in one of the bazaars and disappeared.

In the crowded Kaisariehs of the towns, and in the endless processions of noiseless-footed people on the roads, nothing is more surprising than the way in which odd characters come to the surface for a moment (like a fish rising), and then sink back again into the depths from which they rose.

On mules and donkeys, on horseback and on foot, beggars, or travelling well attended, Berbers and Arabs, Jews, Negroes, Haratin, men from the Sahara, and from the mountains of the Riff, Syrians, and Levantines, outcast Europeans, and an occasional Hindu, with Turks and Greeks, and people from the utmost regions of the Oriental world, they all are there, and always on the move, travelling about as if some not too swiftly circulating quicksilver ran in their veins; whither they go or why, whence come from, and what urges them to wander up and down, is to me inexplicable, and forms one of the many of the unfathomed and unfathomable problems of the East. Not that I mean the various passengers whom I have named bulk largely in the population of Morocco, but they are there, and every now and then one feels how all the Oriental world is linked together by nomadic habits, from Bagdad to Wad Nun, and from Shiraz to the oases of the Sahara.

In Morocco the prevailing tone is greyish white; men’s clothes, and houses, towns, bushes, tall umbelliferÆ, nodding like ghosts in autumn, all are white; white sands upon the shore, and in the Sahara, and over all a white and saddening light, as if the sun was tired with shining down for ever on the unchanging life. In no part of Morocco I have visited does the phrase “gorgeous East” have the least meaning, and this is always noted by the wandering Easterns, who find the country dull and lacking colour compared to Asia, or as the Arabs call it, “Blad Es Shark.” [214]

Almost all day on the Maidan behind our tent football went on (called in Arabic El Cora), and every one joined in, middle-aged men, slaves, and the various hangers-on about the place, the Kaid’s sons playing furiously and whilst the game went on they were not more respected, and received as full a share of kicks, shoves, trips, and pushes as did all the rest. The ball they used was little larger than a pomegranate; no rules seemed to be observed, for everybody pushed, shoved, bit, scratched, and kicked as it seemed best to him, and as they had no goals, but played simply to drive the other players back, the play was wild, and now and then extremely savage, and I saw a man get his shoulder dislocated after a violent fall. Still I sat watching it with great delight, sometimes for hours, as certainly they played it with their whole souls, shouting and yelling, leaping like roe, and everybody playing off side when it seemed good to him, and glorying in his crime.

Towards midday came the Chamberlain, bringing back our guns with many thanks and offers of purchase, which we had to decline, as neither of the guns belonged to us. With him he brought a double-barrelled hammerless gun in good condition, and with the maker’s name (Green, Haymarket, London) engraved upon it. He said it was the Kaid’s, who set great store by it, having received it as a present from a merchant on the coast, and specially he wished to know if the gun was what would be called of first-rate workmanship in England. I told him that it was and probably cost about twenty pounds, and that the son of our Sultana could buy no better or more expensive weapon, unless, which I said did not seem probable to me, he had his guns adorned with gold or precious stones.

But better than the guns, or talk of guns, was the invitation which he brought from the Kaid, saying he would like to see us in the afternoon. As such an invitation was, in our position, really a command, I hesitated some time before accepting it. The Chamberlain saw what was passing in my mind, and to gild the pill, remarked that had the Governor not been suffering from his wound, he would have got upon his horse and ridden to our tent. Though I felt sure that what he said was quite untrue, still mankind is so constituted that humbug flatters us, even although we think we see through it. So I accepted, and Si Mohammed departed after many compliments and with a promise to come and fetch us, and usher us into the Presence, in the afternoon. Lutaif lamented bitterly that we had no European clothes with which to endue ourselves, and properly impress the Kaid.

It must not be forgotten that in the East (and Mogreb-el-Acksa, though it means Far West, is perhaps as Eastern as any country in the world) European clothes, hard hats, elastic-sided boots, grey flannel shirts, with braces, mother-of-pearl studs, two-carat watch-chains, and all the beauty of our meanly contrived apparels, are to Mohammedans the outward visible sign of the inward spiritual Maxim gun, torpedo boat, and arms of precision, on which our civilisation, power, might, dominion, and morality really repose. A shoddy-clad and cheating European pedlar, in his national dress, always suggests to Easterns the might of England somewhere in the offing, and though they laugh at the wearer of the grey shoddy rags behind his back, they yet respect him more than if he were attired in the most beautiful of their own time-hallowed garments, which they know no European puts on but for some purpose of his own. But if a European loses respect in wearing Moorish clothes, he gains in another way, for the Moors are constituted like other men, and, seeing a man dressed in the clothes they wear themselves, converse with him more freely, even if, as in my case, his knowledge of the language is so slight as to make conversation through an interpreter a necessity.

So we put on the best we had all cleanly washed, and Lutaif arrayed himself in a brand new white Selham (burnouse), and looked more Biblical than ever as he stood forth to be my Aaron, I having resolved, in order not to make myself ridiculous, to refrain from saying anything in Arabic, unless I saw a chance to get some phrase in pertinently, and with effect.

Punctually at half-past two the Chamberlain, accompanied by a single follower, came for us, and we—that is, Lutaif, myself, Mohammed-el-Hosein, and Swani—walked as majestically as we could across the deserted Maidan, baking in the sun. We passed through several courts in which our friends the horses and the mules were tied, and I observed the wounded cream-coloured stallion of the Kaid tethered alone and guarded by a little boy who flapped the flies away with a green bough. Passing by the door of the Mosque, we saw a preacher holding forth to a congregation all dressed in white and seated on the ground. No coughing drowned his saw, no shuffling of chairs disturbed his eloquence, the listeners sat as solid as limpets on a rock, whilst his voice rose and fell in measured cadences, reminding one of the long rollers in a calm, just off the line. The door of the mosque was a poor specimen of the bronze-plated work adorned with pious sentences, which can be seen to such perfection in the mosque at Cordoba; the knocker of the familiar round Arab pattern, which the Moors have left in half the houses throughout Southern Spain. A narrow passage, where a few Jews and tribesmen sat waiting for an audience, led beneath a horse-shoe archway. Then, climbing up a dark and almost perpendicular staircase, we emerged into a lofty ante-room where several men sat on the floor preparing saffron, which covered half the room with a dense carpet of bright purple blossom, whilst in a corner lay a clean white sheepskin with a mass of orange saffron fibres all gathered in a heap. At one end of the room there was a narrow doorway, where two men with long guns in their hands kept watch, and people going out and in continually; some emerging crestfallen, and others radiant, as in the times when kings, even in Europe, gave personal audience, and their subjects spoke with them face to face.

Here we waited almost half an hour, no doubt on purpose to impress us with the amount of business which the Kaid had to transact. For myself, I was not sorry, as I had full leisure to observe all that was going on. Though all the people in the room and the two guards must have known who we were, no one showed curiosity, and one man talked to me, pretending to comprehend all that I said as if he wished to put me at my ease. We slipped our shoes off at an intimation from our guide and entered the Presence Chamber, a narrow room with an “artesonado” [218] ceiling in the Hispano-Moorish style, but vilely daubed in Reckitt’s blue and dingy red, and with cheap common gilding making it look tawdry and like the ceiling of an old-fashioned music-hall.

In a recess within the wall two boys were sitting doing nothing in rather an aggressive way. To my eye they looked rather androgynous, but not more so than many young men one sees in Piccadilly on a fine afternoon, and who would tolerate even a suspicion about the noble Shillah race! [219a] The room was carpeted with fine, almost white, matting, over which here and there were thrown black and white rugs from Sus, all worked in curious geometric patterns, woven from the softest of wool mingled with goats’ hair, and with long fringes at the edge.

Upon a dark red saddle-cloth [219b] and using an angle of the wall to lean against, his wounded leg stretched out before him on a sheepskin, and with cushions at his back, his Excellency sat. Luckily Arab manners (and in these matters Berbers follow the Arab lead) prescribe no Kiddush, or, most infallibly, situated as we were, we should have been obliged to make it, with the best grace we could. So we advanced, were formally presented by the Chamberlain, shook hands, and after being greeted quietly, but courteously, and after Lutaif had answered quite in the style of Faredi, sat down upon a rug and leaned against the wall, tucking our feet well underneath our clothes to show our breeding, and remained silently waiting to hear what the Kaid had to say.

Mohammed-el-Hosein and Swani advanced, lifted the Kaid’s selham, kissed it, and then retreating sat down, so to speak, below the salt, whilst in the doorway the two sentinels stood as unmoved as if they saw a Christian every day. Two or three elders sat round the room as stolid as josses in a temple, two Talebs, besides our friend the “Taleb of the Atlas,” were writing letters, and the Chamberlain stood at attention till the Kaid waved him to take a seat.

No doubt his Excellency took mental notes of us, and certainly I looked him over carefully, thinking that in a personal discussion upon horseback, out on the Maidan, he would prove a very awkward foe.

Just about forty years of age, thick-set, and dark complexioned, close black beard trimmed to a double point, rather small eyes, like those of all his race, he gave no indication of the cruelty for which he was renowned; not noble in appearance as are many of the Sheikhs of Arab blood, but still looking as one accustomed to command; hands strong and muscular, voice rather harsh, but low, and trained in the best school of Arab manners, so as to be hardly audible. Just for a moment, and no more, I got a glimpse of the inside man as I caught his eye fixed on me, savage yet fish-like, but in an instant a sort of film seemed to pass over it, not that he dropped his gaze, but seemed deliberately to veil it, as if he had reserved it for a more fitting opportunity. By race and language he was a Berber, but speaking Arabic tolerably fluently, and adapting all his habits and dress to those in fashion amongst Arab Sheikhs. His clothes white and of the finest wool, and clean as is a sheet of paper before a writer marks it black with lies. The Talebs never stopped opening and writing letters, now and then handing one to the Kaid who glanced it over and said “Guaha” (“Good”), and gave it back to have the seal affixed with one of the three large silver seals which stood upon a little table about six inches high. The sealing-wax was European, and kept in a box of common cardboard, which had been mended in several places with little silver bands to keep the sides together, as we should mend a lacquered box from Persia or Japan. Behind the Kaid, to mark his seat, upon the wall were painted three “ajimeces,” [221] roughly designed in blue and red and green in the worst of taste. For furniture, in addition to the matting and the rugs and leather-covered cushions, the cover cut into intricate geometric patterns, the room contained a small trunk-shaped box (perhaps entirely stuffed with gold, Allah hualem), a Belgian single-barrelled nickel-plated breech-loading gun hung on a nail, and the before-named double-barrelled English gun (from the Haymarket of the mysterious Londres or Windres, in the isle of Mists), a large pair of double field glasses; some bags of hide, two porous water bottles, a bundle of reed pens, and two or three pieces of bread, the staff of life, which fills so large a place in Moorish thoughts and life, and which an Arab of the old school breaks, but never touches with a knife. Two negro boys with dirty handkerchiefs, and boughs of walnut, stood on the right and left hand of the Kaid, and flapped away the flies.

Oh, what a falling off from when, in Medina el Azahra, the great palace outside Cordoba, the Greek Ambassador beheld the Caliph’s court, the wonders of the great gold basin filled with a sea of quicksilver, and the slave boys, beautiful as angels, who fanned their lord with jewelled fans made of the feathers of the wondrous bird from Hind, which on its spread-out tail carries a hundred eyes. But in Kintafi, even the Kaid himself held in his hand a branch torn from a bush, and flapped occasionally with his own august hand, when the myriads of flies became impertinent.

People were going in and out perpetually, like bees into a hive, or politicians pretending they have important business in the House of Commons. Some brought petitions, others begged for mules, horses, a gun, or anything which came into their minds, and generally the Kaid gave something, for Moors all pique themselves upon their generosity.

Besides suppliants, Jews and various artificers were hanging about the ante-room. A silversmith advanced to show a half-completed silver-sheathed and hafted dagger, engraved with pious sentences, as “God is our sufficiency and our best bulwark here on earth,” and running in and out between the texts a pattern of a rope with one of the strands left out, which pattern also ran round the cornice of the room we sat in, and round the door, as it runs round the doors in the Alhambra and the Alcazar, and in thousands of houses built by the Moors, and standing still, in Spain. The dagger and the sheath were handed to me for my inspection, and on my saying that they were beautifully worked, the Kaid said, “Keep them,” but I declined, not having anything of equal value to give in return, and being almost certain if I sent a present from Mogador, that it would never reach its owner’s hands. So we gravely put the dagger backwards and forwards with many courteous waves, “It is yours, take it I pray, although unworthy your acceptance”; and I “The dagger is in worthy hands, let it remain with one who had the good taste to order such fine work, and has the hands to use the weapon when there is need.” A pretty little comedy, my share of which I conducted through Lutaif, not wishing to fall into barbarities of speech and make myself ridiculous before so many well-spoken men.

Slave boys, in clothes perhaps worth eighteenpence, served coffee, rather an unusual thing in visiting a Moor, for all drink tea. The tray was copper, beautifully chased, and adorned with sentences from the Koran, the service varied, and consisting of a common wine glass, one champagne glass of the old-fashioned narrow pattern, three cheap French cups, and a most beautifully engraved old Spanish glass goblet out of which his Excellency drank. The coffee-pot looked like a piece of Empire silver ware; the coffee excellent, and brought most probably by some pilgrim from Arabia, and used only on great occasions such as the present, or at a marriage feast.

The talk ran chiefly upon our journey: why had we come? why dressed like Moors? where were we going? and why we had no letter from the Sultan; and, above all, why had we not called at his house in passing as was usual for all Moors (of our assumed condition) to do when on the road? I answered that we were going to Tarudant, that we were dressed as Moors because the people were not accustomed to see Christians, and might have insulted us; and that we did not call upon him knowing he had so many visitors, and not wishing to intrude. As to a Sultan’s letter, that was unnecessary, for I knew well if I had one he would find some good reason to stop us, under the pretext that the roads we should encounter would be unsafe. Moreover, that I had travelled much in Morocco, and did not like to have a Sultan’s letter, for if I had one, no one would let me pay for food, and that I could not bear to be a burden on the poor tribesmen amongst whom I passed.

My object in visiting Tarudant seemed to him incomprehensible, as it was merely curiosity, and for a moment it crossed my mind, should I make up some reason, such as a vow to make a pilgrimage, a wish to see if there were mines in the vicinity, or something which should seem sufficient in his eyes? but in a minute was glad I had not done so, for he asked, did I know the English adventurers who, a few months ago, had tried to land upon the coast of Sus? As at that time I did not, I answered that they were personally unknown to me, but that I totally disapproved what they had done, especially because Government had warned British subjects not to try to come to terms with the Sus chiefs, and that the Sultan had expressed a wish that nothing of that nature should be done. I added that personally I reverenced all Governments, especially my own, having been once a member of the great Council of our Empire, which, I took care to state, with all the patriotism I could command, was, on reliable authority, said to be the largest and finest in the world. He answered “Guaha, that is so. Allah himself appointed Governments, placed the sword of justice in their hands, and it is for them to say what should be done and see their wishes are respected.” To this I gave assent, and he inquired was I still of the Council? and, when I answered no, asked if I had quarrelled with the Vizirs, or done anything unpleasing to them, or was I only tired of public life? Finding our parliamentary system too intricate to explain, I said I was tired of the cares of state, and he replied, “Yes, they are heavy, and I myself have never wished to go to Court.” As I knew well if he ever ventured there his life was not worth a rotten egg, I applauded his resolve, spoke of the pleasures of a country life, and, as all hitherto had passed through the good offices of Lutaif, thought that my chance had come, and mustering up my Arabic told him he should be content with what God gave him, for as he was, he was a Sultan in himself. He smiled, whether at the compliment or my bad Arabic, I do not know, and beckoned to Mohammed-el-Hosein to come and speak with him.

Mohammed-el-Hosein advanced, kissed his Selham, and in an instant became a gentleman and conversed on equal terms. What they conversed about I do not know, as all their talk passed in Shillah; but I conclude the Kaid was satisfied with what Mohammed said, for, signing to the slave who poured the coffee out (a knave who had a heavy silver earring in his ear, from which depended a cross-shaped ornament with Solomon’s Seal engraved upon it), he told him to give Mohammed coffee; he did so, in a white egg-cup, which, as it stood behind the coffee pot, I had not previously observed. “Do you in Europe travel about all through the different countries without letters from your Queen?” “No,” I rejoined, “we take a letter signed by our Grand Vizir, and show it, if asked for, at the frontiers of the various States.” “Of course you have one?” he immediately replied. I answered “Yes,” and just remembered I had left it behind me in the hotel in Mogador; but luckily he did not ask to see it, or I should have had to show him a letter which I had with a large seal upon it, which probably would have answered just as well.

I pressed him to allow us to go on to Tarudant; but he became mysterious, said the roads were bad, the people dangerous, and that to save our lives he had acted in the way that he had done.

Nothing is so disagreeable as to have your life saved in your own despite. Fancy the feelings of a would-be suicide when some intruding fellow, like a great Newfoundland dog, jumps in and pulls him out, and then on landing asks him for his thanks!

After the coffee, talk ran a good deal upon various things, polygamy and monogamy, always an interesting subject to all Orientals, who, being primitive in tastes and habits, set much account on primary passions (or affections) and think more of such matters than we do, talking quite openly and without periphrasis on things we do, but never talk about, or if we do, lower our breath in talking. Strange and incomprehensible to a logician that a man should say, I am hungry, thirsty, tired, and think there is something wrong, indelicate, or indifferent in mentioning the kindred passions, presumably implanted in his body by the same All-Wise Creator who endowed him with the capacity to feel thirst, hunger, or fatigue. The Kaid was of opinion that polygamy was natural to mankind, and asked me if the English did not really think so in their hearts. It is most difficult, without having been duly elected, to speak for a whole nation, so I replied that many acted as if they thought polygamy was right, but I ventured to opine that advanced thinkers in general inclined to polyandry, and that seemed to be the opinion which, in the future, would prevail. This he thought clearly wrong; but I explained that advanced thinkers were inclined to hold that women could do no wrong, and that all infamy of every nature had its root in man.

The prisoners in the Riff [226] next were enlarged upon, and the Kaid asked if they had been released, and what I thought about the whole affair. Thinking the opportunity favourable to air my Arabic again, I said laboriously that I had heard there were some prisoners in the Riff, and added that there were prisoners also in the Atlas, but no doubt the Sultan would soon order their release.

His Excellency’s wounded leg was, on the whole, the subject which gave most scope for talk. Neither his Arabic nor mine was fluent enough to explain, or understand quite fully, what had taken place. More coffee having been ordered, the Chamberlain entered into an explanation which Lutaif translated when I (as happened now and then) became bewildered in the current of his speech. About two months ago the unlawfully begotten people in the Sus, egged on by certain British traders, [227a] had rebelled against their Lord. The chief offenders were sons of Jews (Oulad el Jahud), who had withdrawn themselves into a fortified position three or four days’ journey from Thelata-el-Jacoub. The Kaid was ordered to co-operate with the troops in Sus and bring the rebels back to allegiance, or destroy them all. Most probably the Kaid had no objection to an expedition out of his territory, though in point of fact his own allegiance to the Sultan did not much trouble him. However, mounted on the white horse, which I saw wounded and drinking in the river, and leading on his men, the Kaid had advanced against the revolted tribesmen, who were strongly posted amongst rocks protected with an outwork of Zaribas [227b] made of prickly bushes, from behind which they fired upon the Kaid’s forces who had no shelter, and soon suffered heavy loss. The saddles emptying on every side, the Kaid was left almost alone with about twenty men, amongst whom was I who speak (the Chamberlain remarked in passing, but without any self-consciousness), his horse received a bullet in the chest, and another in the head; but still the Kaid advanced, keeping his horse’s head as much as possible between him and the fire. At last another bullet struck the horse close to the nose and he wheeling, the Kaid received a bullet in the left leg and fell! “Then,” said the Chamberlain, “I rode close up to him, and the bullets tore up the grass on every side, when our men rallying brought us off, I and four others carrying the Kaid under a heavy fire, and the white wounded horse walking beside us, till we reached our camp.”During the tale the Kaid sat imperturbable as a joss cut out of soapstone, but punctuating all his henchman said with an occasional “Guaha,” or some pious ejaculation fit for a man of quality to use.

In the camp they placed the wounded Kaid upon a mule, and fighting for the first two days almost incessantly, upon the evening of the sixth day they brought him home, two slaves having supported him on either side stretched on the mule, too weak to sit upright, and with four more helping the wounded horse, which the Kaid on no account would leave to be the prize of Kaffirs such as those who dwelt in Sus.

My opinion of all concerned rose not a little on listening to the history and on learning that the Kaid had hesitated not an instant to sacrifice his life, and those of all his followers, to save his favourite horse. And all the time the tale was going on I thought where had I heard all this before, for every incident seemed to me in some strange way familiar. At last I recollected that Garcilasso de la Vega (Inca) in his “Comentarios Reales del Peru,” when he relates the civil wars between the followers of the Pizarros and the forces of the Viceroy, tells how Gonzalo de Silvestre, after the battle of Huarina, found himself alone upon a horse wounded twice in the head, and in the chest, and that he gave himself up for lost, thinking his horse would fall, when “feeling him a little with the bridle, the horse threw up his head, and, snorting, blew blood through his nostrils and seemed relieved, then went on galloping, and presently I passed one of our partizans retreating, badly wounded, on a mule, not able to sit upright for his hurt, and by him walked an Indian woman, with her hand upon the wound to stop the blood.” [228] Gonzalo de Silvestre and the wounded man and horse all got off with their lives, no doubt the same tripartite deity assisting them who in his indivisible aspect came to the assistance of the Chamberlain and of the Kaid.

Could I then undertake to examine the leg and perhaps extract the ball? was put to me through the medium of the Chamberlain. For a moment I hesitated, thinking that if the ball was near the skin I would hazard it, and so earn the eternal gratitude of the Kaid and be sent on to Tarudant with honour and with an escort of his followers to guard me on the way. One look dispelled my hopes, for the wound was high up in the thigh, close to the femoral artery and had almost healed, although the patient said it gave him pain, and stopped him from getting on his horse, though when once mounted he could make a shift to ride. Reluctantly I had to say I was not able to undertake so serious a case. The Kaid’s face fell, so I advised him to send for an English doctor who I knew was staying in Morocco city for his health, and who would have been glad to see so strange a place, and put the patient upon his legs again. If he has done so by this time I do not know, or even if the Kaid made up his mind to send for him; but the chance for a doctor was unique, and therefore has, most probably, been missed.

Governors of provinces in Morocco, and throughout the East, are rather shy of going to the capital, even in such a case as this; for once there, the Sultan often takes the opportunity of making them disgorge some of the money which they have plundered in their government. On the first rumour that the Governor is in disgrace, the tribe rebels, blockades the castle, burns it down if possible, and some neighbouring Sheikh sends to the Sultan and offers a large sum to be made Governor in the disgraced man’s place. Even if things do not go quite so far as that, a journey in Morocco has its inconveniences, for generally the wives take the chance of the husband’s absence to dig up his money and send it to their friends. This happened to the Kaid of Kintafi when wounded in the Sus, and he, on his return finding his money gone, divorced two of his wives, and treated all the others to some discipline, which the Chamberlain assured me had restored peace and order to his Excellency’s house.

Our interview having lasted almost two hours, we rose to take our leave. I thanked the Kaid for his continued hospitality, assured him that I should not easily forget Kintafi, promised to send him a doctor if he wished, and quite forgot I was a prisoner. He on his part transmitted his good wishes through the medium of his henchman and Lutaif, and said he hoped we would not leave Kintafi for a few days more, as he was anxious to speak to us again. This was not quite the ending of the interview I had expected, for it amounted to an order we should not leave the place, so in conveying to him my best thanks for all his hospitality, I told him that I would let him know the latest news about the prisoners in the Riff on my return to Mogador, and in the meantime hoped Allah would guide him in all he did, and that he would continue to dispense his hospitality to all who passed, because, as Sidna Mohammed himself has said, “that hospitality, even when unasked for, blesses both the host and guest.”

Lutaif, who had the pleasure of translating this farewell, did not much like his task, but faced it manfully, and so amidst a shower of compliments we took our leave, and left the presence of our illustrious host for good. Still an experience not to have been missed, and differing extremely from the ordinary visit paid by the travelling European to a Moorish Kaid on equal terms, that is, when dressed in European clothes, furnished with letters from the Sultan and the ambassador of the traveller’s country, when one drinks tea, exchanges compliments, and learns as little of the real go on of an Oriental house, as does a man born rich learn the real workings of the people’s minds with whom he lives his life.

An Eastern potentate of the Arabian Nights was the Kaid, with all the culture of the Arabs of the Middle Ages absent, but as he was, the arbiter of life and death in a wide district. A gentleman in manners, courteous to those whom he had all the power to treat with rudeness or severity; a horseman and a fighter; a tyrant naturally, as any man would be if placed in his position; but no more tyrannical in disposition than is some new elected County Councillor, mad to make all men chaste and sober by some bye-law or another; himself a victim to a lewd Puritanism, and an insatiable love of cant. Half independent of the Sultan, leading his own troops, dispensing justice, as he thought he saw it, in his own courtyard, and to me interesting in special as a sort of after type of those great Arab Emirs who sprang from the sands of Africa and of Arabia, shook Europe, flourished in Spain, built the Alhambra and Alcazar, gave us the Arab horse and the curb bit, and kept alive the remains of Greek philosophy in Cordoba and in Toledo, when all the rest of Europe grovelled in darkness; then by degrees fell into decadence, and sank again into the sands of Africa, to still keep alive the patriarchal system, the oldest and perhaps the best conception of a simple life mankind has yet found out. Allah Ackbar; lost in a wilderness of broadcloth, I still praise God that such a man exists, if only to contrast him in my mind with the self-advertising anthropoids who make one fancy, if the Darwinian theory still holds good, that the God after whose image the first man was made had surely been an ape. Through passages and courtyards we reached the open space on which our tent was pitched, escorted by a guard of men well armed with guns and daggers, which appendages made them none the less loth to take a tip on coming to the tent than if they had been so many gamekeepers, who take their unearned money after a grouse drive, or a hot corner in the coverts, with an air of doing you a service, and whose contempt for you is only equalled by your disgust both at yourself and them.

But, over everyone a change had come, for we had stood before the face of the great man with honour, and those who scarcely in the morning returned our salutations, gravely saluted us and condescended to enquire after our welfare and our health.

Swani and Mohammed-el-Hosein were radiant, more especially because the Kaid had sent a sheep, which they had already slain and given to a “master” (maalem) to roast en barbecue. Although I personally was disappointed that we had not been able either to get an answer from the Kaid as to our return, still less to get permission to go on, yet I was glad to have seen him, placed as I was, and wondered if an English Duke in the Georgian times would have treated an Arab wandering in England, and giving out he was an English clergyman, as well as the wild, semi-independent Berber Sheikh treated the wandering Englishman who assumed to pass, not merely as a clergyman, but as a saint.

Four men appeared bearing the sheep on a huge wooden dish, smoking and peppered so as to start us sneezing; and when the Maalem had torn it into convenient portions with his hands, we all fell to, Lutaif and I with an appetite that civilisation gives for such a meal; the rest like wolves, or men remembering the Hispano-Moorish proverb to the effect that meat and appetite go not always together, though both are sent by God.