Just about daylight we began to load our beasts, looking anxiously the while to see if any notice of our proceedings was taken from the castle walls. No one stirred, and hungry, without provisions for the road, our animals half-starved but lightly laden—for the greatest weight we had in coming had been food and barley—we prepared to start.

In the other tents the people made no sign, it was so early that neither the slaves were in the fields, nor yet the prisoners come up out of their living tomb, and still I thought it would be prudent before leaving to send Mohammed-el-Hosein to say that we were going, for to escape unseen was quite impossible, and even if we had slipped off unseen, once the alarm was given we should have been overtaken and brought back at once. We had not long to wait; Mohammed-el-Hosein soon came back crestfallen, the postern door was swung wide open and the Chamberlain emerged, followed by several tribesmen all ostentatiously carrying long guns. Although it was so early he was dressed, as at all times, in most spotless clothes, and walked across the Maidan with as near an approach to haste as I had ever seen him make. Arrived at where we stood, he saluted us quite ceremoniously, and asked where we were going, to which I answered, “Back to Mogador.” On this he said, “The Kaid bids me to tell you not to go to-day as he could never think of letting Europeans go without an audience, but most unfortunately his wound pains him this morning, and besides that, now you are known as Christians, he would not let you wander through the hill passes without an escort, therefore he bids me tell you to unload and wait.” For a moment I thought, “If we go on he will not dare to stop us,” and taking my bridle in my hand, prepared to mount, when the armed followers drew near, handling their guns, as if to shoot a Christian would have been great sport.

The Chamberlain said a few words in Shillah, which having been interpreted, said if we insisted upon going he must see his master’s orders carried out. Seeing that the Kaid was resolved we should not go, I gave my horse to Swani and went into the tent. The Chamberlain came after me, and standing in the door told me most civilly that he had done what he was told to do; as he had done it in the most well-bred way, with every consideration for my feelings and without a trace of swagger, I thought the moment had arrived to talk and understand each other if we could. The Chamberlain, Sidi [193] Mohammed, was a well-favoured, “coffee and skim-milk” coloured man; portly, of course, as became his office, honest as officers of great men go, well-dressed and courteous; in fact, a sort of Eastern Malvolio, with the addition of some sense.

I laid before him my two chief complaints, which I said I had no wish to bother him about, but that it seemed the best thing I could do was to marry a maiden or two belonging to the tribe and set up house, as there seemed little chance of ever moving from the place. However, in the meantime, should the Kaid consent to let us go, I did not want to walk back to the coast, and my horse and the other animals were growing weaker every day for want of food. Without preamble, therefore, I promised Sidi Mohammed a handsome present when I went if he would see that the man who kept the corn gave a sufficient quantity every day and did not sell it or keep it back as he had done for the past week. Sidi Mohammed expressed astonishment at such behaviour, and perhaps felt it, as no doubt the Kaid had ordered our horses to be fed, and promised to see about the matter instantly and put things right.

My next complaint was that there were five of us all in one small tent, and that such crowding was neither comfortable nor seemly, either for a Christian “caballer” or for a Moorish gentleman, which rank my clothes and following entitled me to take. The promise of the present smoothed the way, and Sidi Mohammed said he would take upon himself to give permission to pitch another tent. This being done, and the men, the saddles, harness, and saddle-cloths transferred to a smaller tent, we had our own swept out and aired; a new drain cut to carry off the water, and stones arranged (which looked exactly like an Arab grave), to place our rugs upon, and keep them off the damp. For the first time for a week Lutaif and I were comfortable, washed in a tin basin, changed our clothes, and sitting in the sun at the open door of the tent drank tea and smoked, planning the while to get another man to take the letters which the faithless or heartless messenger had brought back the night before. Swani and Mohammed-el-Hosein went to the river and washed their clothes, and even Ali, who had nothing except what he wore, borrowed an old Djelab and, standing in the river, stamped upon his rags.

Our friend the Persian came and sat with us, condoling on our having been prevented starting, but saying I had taken the right way with Si-Mohammed, and that he was glad we had got another tent.

As we sat talking, a Jew pedlar arrived bringing two laden mules. The Persian said he might by chance have some tobacco, and being out of it I sent and asked the Jew to come and talk. He came, and thinking I was a Moor began to offer all his goods, henna, and looking-glasses, needles and cotton, scissors from Germany, knives made in Spain, and cotton cloths (well-sized) from Manchester. I let him talk, but when he saw that every now and then I missed some words and had to ask an explanation from Lutaif, who answered me in English, he began to stare, and at last said in stumbling Spanish, “Are you not a Moor?” “No,” I replied. He said, “What, then, you cannot be a Jew?” On hearing that I was a Christian, [195a] his amazement knew no bounds. “Christian,” he said, “and dressed like a Moor, camped in the middle of the Atlas, how ever came you here?” When I informed him I had passed as a Sherif, he roared with laughter, and said he would have given all his mules’ load to see the people come and kiss my clothes.

It seemed he lived in Agadhir-Ighir, [195b] and traded through the Atlas, as he informed me many of the poorer Jews do, selling their goods, and buying wool and goat-skins to take back. He had tobacco from Algeria of a villainous quality, strong, black and common, and done up in gaudy-coloured packets, adorned, one with a picture of a lady dancing “le chahut,” another of apocryphal-looking Arabs resting in an Oasis; the third displayed a little French soldier running his bayonet through a picture of Bismarck, and underneath the legend, in Italian, “Furia Francese,” and to make all sure the Regie mark. I bought all three, which sold him out, and all my men were gratified with about half-a-pound apiece. They said it was the best tobacco they had ever smoked, but I think that tobacco was to them as it was to a Scotch gamekeeper to whom I gave, when a boy fresh from school, a packet of Honey Dew which I had bought in London, and who said upon my asking him if it was good, “Ye ken, Sir, if she burns she is good tobacco, and if she willna burn, then she’s nae good.” The Persian too participated in the tobacco, being reduced to smoking Kief. [196] Under the influence of the Algerian tobacco, which, to make himself intelligible to me, he characterised as being “bon besaf,” he got back to his wanderings up and down the world.

Ifrikia, as he called Africa, he thought the most savage and abominable portion of the earth. Even the Kurds, whom he knew well, he thought were not so fierce as were the Arabs of the Wad-Nun. The poor man, an ardent believer in Mohammedanism, though not a bigot, and at times gaining his livelihood by discoursing on Mohammed and the Koran, whilst travelling in Wad-Nun upon the road to Timbuctoo, which as he said he did not reach, there being “too much powder on the road,” was frequently in peril of his life, being taken for an unbeliever, being himself a Sufi, and the Moors all members of the sect into which orthodox Mohammedans are grouped. The poor old Ajemi [197] it appeared on one occasion was surrounded by a band of Arabs who held their daggers to his throat, and put their guns up to his head until he, losing patience, knelt upon the sand, said “Bismillah, kill me in God’s name,” reciting the confession of his faith in a loud voice. However, Allah, he said, had spared him, for after taking all his money, and almost all his clothes, the Arabs had let him go, and cautioned him to walk with God and not return to the Wad-Nun again. This he was confident he would not do, preferring even Franguestan and its peculiar ways to the companionship of such evil-begotten men as those. I like to think of him, friendless and all alone, kneeling upon the sand, surrounded by a crowd of horsemen, ready, although not wishing, to be killed, and wonder if he thought about the irony of things, that he, an ardent votary of his religion, was to be put to death for heresy. At times when thinking upon other people’s travels (always so much more interesting than any of my own), it comes before me how that, in desert places, mountain passes and the like, so many men must have been killed, and met their fate heroically, the situation so to speak thrown away, with no one there to see, record, to write about it, as if the poor, forlorn and wasted heroes were no more worth a thought than the fat man of business who snorts his life out on a feather-bed between a medicine bottle and a mumbling priest. So the old Persian left us to make his preparations for an early start next day, hoping to reach a saint’s tomb of great sanctity on the hill path which leads from Kintafi to Tamasluocht, but is only to be passed on foot. He said he was tired of this wild part of Africa, and would make his way to Magador, thence to Tangier, return to Persia and push on to China, which he hoped to visit ere he died. Considering that he had little money, for I expect the twenty dollars of the Kaid were for the most part quite apocryphal, and that the journey, made as he would make it, would probably take years, he did not seem too excited, or as much so as a man who thinks his things have been put into the wrong luggage van at Charing Cross.

People who write about the progress of the world, the wealth of nations, of economic laws, and subjects of that kind, requiring rather stronger imaginative powers than reason, logic, or than common-sense, are apt to take it as a well-established fact that before railways were invented people, especially poor people, travelled but little, and generally never moved far from the places where they were born. This may have been so in the last two hundred years, although I doubt it, but certainly during the Middle Ages they must have travelled much. Leaving the pilgrimages out of account (and they, of course, brought every European nation into contact), I take it that many roved about, as they still do in Eastern lands. People, no doubt, had no facilities for travelling for mere amusement’s sake; but if we read any old book of travels, how often does the writer meet a countryman, a student, minstrel, soldier, or wandering artisan in countries far away.

So, when the Persian went, we strolled out for a walk, followed the river for a mile or two, and found it full of fish; but the whole time we sojourned at Kintafi we saw no one fishing either with rod or net. The people whom we met were all well armed; and when they met us, kissed our clothes, taking us for Arabs of rank upon a visit to the Kaid.

It always pleased me to see two Arabs or two Berbers meet, embrace each other, kiss each other’s shoulder, ask respectively, How is your house? (“Darde-alic”), for to enquire after the health of even a brother’s wife would be indecent; and then, the ceremony over, sit down to talk and strive with might and main to cheat each other, after the fashion in which Englishmen proceed in the same case.

Seated beneath a cliff, our feet just dangling in the stream to cool, smoking the vile Algerian tobacco, Lutaif began to tell me of his life in Syria, described his father’s house, a great, gaunt place with a long chamber in the middle, given up to winding silk; spoke of the undying enmity between the Turk, the Druse, the Maronite, and the Old Catholics, of which sect he was a member; leaving on my mind the feeling that the Lebanon for a residence must be as undesirable as was Scotland in the old wicked days, when they burnt witches, and the narrow-minded clergy made the land a hell. One thing particularly struck me when he said, upon a walk, if we had been in Syria, dressed as we were in clothes which marked us for Mohammedans, and had we met four or five Christians, they would have either insulted or attacked us; and, of course, the same held good for Christians who on a walk met Turks. Remembering this happy state of things, and having from his youth looked upon every Mohammedan as a sworn enemy, when he first came to Morocco, knowing the people were fanatical Mohammedans, he passed his life in dread. Once in Tangier, not thinking what he did, or of the peril that he naturally incurred, he took a country walk. He started from the town dressed as a European, carrying a silver-headed stick, and several oranges in a brown paper bag to eat upon the way. After a mile or two, he took an orange out of his bag and, sitting down, was just about to eat when to his horror, on the sandy road, what did he see but five or six well-armed young men come, as he said, dancing like devils up the road and brandishing their knives. He called upon his God and closed his eyes, being quite sure that his last hour was come. Then to his great surprise the men stopped dancing, sheathed their knives and after saluting him respectfully sat down, several yards away, without a word. At last one asked him humbly for an orange, and Lutaif took the whole bag and was about to entreat them to take all his oranges, his clothes, his money, everything, but to spare his life. To his amazement, the man took an orange from the bag, divided it into five portions, one of which he handed to each of the young men, and handed back the bag. The exiguous portions of the orange discussed, the spokesman asked him not to point the silver-headed stick their way, for it appeared they had got into their minds it was some kind of gun, which, if Lutaif discharged it, would destroy them all. He promised faithfully, and the wayfarers went upon their way, leaving Lutaif as frightened as themselves. No doubt when first he saw them they were exercising, skipping about like fawns, in the sheer joy of life, but as they came upon him suddenly, their sandalled feet making no noise upon the sandy road, for a Syrian the vision must have been horrible enough.

When he wrote home and told his friends what had occurred to him, and how a Christian was regarded (near Tangier) with respect and awe, the answer that he got was curious. Of course they thought he was telling lies, but his best friend admonished him it was bad taste to jest about Mohammedans; for, though no doubt they were bad neighbours, no one in Syria could call them cowards. In fact, the friend appeared to me to be like every Eastern Christian I have met, quick to run down the Turks, to fight with them, hating them bitterly at home; but yet if a stranger slighted them abroad, quick to resent the slight, say they were brave, and that they erred through wicked counsellors and not from lack of heart.

All the above he told me, and plenty more, with the inimitable charm that Easterns have in storytelling, compared to which even Guy de Maupassant, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Balzac, or Fielding fall immeasurably behind. The doubtful author of the Celestina [201] and Cervantes, perhaps, come nearer; but then they, being Spaniards, were more nearly in communion with the East.

As we returned, tired and half hoping that there might be news, we learned a “rekass” had just arrived bringing despatches from the Sultan to the Kaid. Though we knew well there had not been time for the Kaid to get an answer to the letter he had sent about ourselves, yet outside news was valuable, and, in fact, had I chanced to come upon a copy of the Rock, I think I could have read it, advertisements and all. In half an hour or so the “rekass” strolled past our tent, and I invited him to come and have some tea. Out of respect he sat outside the tent, saluted us, and remained waiting to be interrogated. He was a tall, lean, teak-complexioned man, in face resembling a Maori god stuck up outside a Pah; vacant and glassy eyed and at first sight a kieffi, that is a kief smoker, thick lipped and with uncertain speech as if the tongue was (like the tongues of Bourbons) too large for his mouth, also a symptom of too much kief smoking; legs like a bronco’s from the Bad Lands, a mule’s, or a bagual’s from the stony deserts of Patagonia; feet rather large, with the toes so flexible that the whole member seemed to quiver as he walked. For clothes he had a single white garment like a nightshirt (long freed from all the tyranny of soap), hanging down almost to the ankles, girt round the waist with a string of camel’s hair. He went bare-headed and had a cord of camel’s hair bound round his temples, with a long lock, at least eight inches long, hanging from the top of his bare shaven head beside his ear. Though he had walked incessantly for the last seven days, sleeping an hour or two with a piece of burning match tied to his toe to wake him as it burned away, he strolled about, or sitting drank his tea, taking a cup now and again, which Ali or Swani passed to him out of the tent. He said as long as he had kief he never wanted food, but munched a bit of bread occasionally, drank at every stream, and trotted on day after day, just like a camel, for, as he told us, he was born to run. Withal no fool, and pious, praying now and then whenever he passed a saint’s tomb and felt wearied with the way. Just such a man as you may see amongst the cholos of the sierras of Peru, with the difference that the cholo takes coca instead of kief, and is in general a short, squat, ugly fellow, whereas our kieffi stood over six feet high, straight as a pikestaff, and was intelligent after his fashion, could read and write, and no doubt knew as much theology as was required from a right-thinking man.

For impedimenta he had a little bag in which he kept his kief, his matches, pipe, and the small store of money which it was possible he had. In one hand he carried a stout quarter-staff full five feet long, which all “rekasses” use to walk with, try the depth of water in crossing streams, defend themselves, and ease their backs by passing it behind them through their two arms, and resting on it as they trot along.

His news was brief but bloody. “Our Lord the Sultan is camped in Tedla. [202] He is indeed a king, fifty-one heads cut off, two tribes quite eaten up, three hundred of the Kaffirs wounded! O what a joy it was to see the ‘maquina,’ the Christian devil gun, which fires all day, play on the enemies of our Lord the king. Praise be to Allah who alone giveth victory.” Which being interpreted meant that the Sultan had gone under pretence of peace to Tedla; had by the advice of the Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed attacked them; butchered as many as he could, and probably sent a few hundred to die in gaol. The selfsame fate overtook the Rahamna tribe close to Morocco city. They fought a year with varying success, but at the last were decimated, butchered in hundreds, and their power destroyed.

The Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed, if all reports be true, is a bad counsellor for the young Sultan, Mulai Abdul Assiz. But be this as it may—for some who know the country say that the Grand Vizier, being a Moor, knows how to rule his countrymen—Sidi Ahmed ben Musa, usually called Ba Ahmed (Father Ahmed), is an ambitious and most powerful man, holding the Sultan in a sort of tutelage, and piling up a fortune by his exactions, which report says he has invested in safe securities abroad.

The father of the Sultan, Mulai el Hassan, who died or was poisoned some four years ago, was a remarkable personality, and perhaps one of the last Oriental potentates of the old school. Standing about six feet three inches in his slippers, he was dark in face, having, though a descendant of Mohammed, some negro blood; a perfect horseman, shot, and skilled in swordsmanship; though educated in all the learning of the Moors, he yet was tolerant of Christians, kind to Jews, and much more liberal in regard to new ideas than is his son, that is to say, if it is not Ba Ahmed who directs his policy. Mulai el Hassan was what is called a “riding Sultan,” that is a warrior, always on horseback, and passing all his life either in journeys between his various capitals, or on long expeditions to reduce refractory tribes. His fine white horse has been described by almost every embassy for the past ten years that went to Fez, for from his back the Sultan used to receive ambassadors, who bound in their hats, hosen, coats, swords, tight boots, and dignity, and forced to stand in a hot sun, on foot, must have presented a very lamentable sight.

On the white horse’s back the Sultan almost died, for one who saw him shortly before his death was standing in a street in the outskirts of Marakesh when the Sultan passed, having been sixteen hours on horseback in the rain, and looking like a corpse. Next day he died so suddenly that some thought he had been poisoned, but others think worn out with care and trouble, long journeys, and all the burden of a ruler’s life. All those who knew him say that his manners were most courteous, kind, and dignified, and that through all his life none of his servants ever heard him raise his voice, even in battle or when he ordered some unlucky man to death, above its ordinary pitch.

His clothes were spotless white; but made in the fashion of those worn by an ordinary tribesman, only of finer stuff. Colours he never wore, or jewellery, except a silver ring with a large diamond, and which when once an individual, whose name I forbear to mention, asked him for it for a keepsake, he half drew off (for usually he gave all that was asked for); but replaced and said with a quiet smile, “No, I will keep it, but you can have its value in money if you choose.” His clothes he never wore more than a day, and then his servants claimed them as perquisites; so that his wardrobe must have been pretty extensive even for a king. Upon a journey he carried almost all he had, packed upon camels, and, being troubled with insomnia at times, would say, “Bring me the telescope the Belgian Minister gave me ten years ago,” or “the watch the Queen of England sent me,” and the unlucky man to whom he spoke had to produce the thing, if he unpacked a hundred camels in the search.

The taxes he used to collect in person with an army, so that his camp was like a town of canvas, and yet the order of his own tents so great and his men so skilled in pitching them, that at a halt they used to rise like magic from the ground.

Wives, and that sort of thing, he had about three hundred, and was much addicted to their company, and some of them accompanied him on all the journeys which he made. His son, the present Sultan, was born of a Circassian, white, and report said beautiful and educated; but she transmitted little beauty and less education to her son, who is a rather heavy youth of about twenty, not well instructed, and completely in the hands of his Vizier, Ba Ahmed, who, by exactions, cruelties, and bloodshed, has made his master’s name detested all through the land. Still a strong man, and no doubt in such countries as Morocco, when a Sultan dies a strong man is required, for the tribes usually rise in rebellion, kill their Kaids, burn down their castles, and a recognised period of anarchy takes place, known as El Siba by the natives, and of which they all take full advantage.

That the Vizier was a man of readiness and resource is shown by the way he foiled the expedition of the yacht Tourmaline, [205] by means of which a syndicate in London endeavoured to procure a footing in the Sus. Thinking the kieffi would be an excellent man to take our letters, we sounded him, but in a moment he became mysterious, said he must sleep, would think about it, and though we often saw him subsequently strolling about, he never visited our tent again.

After the kieffi went, the Persian came to say good-bye, and sat long talking about Montenegro, where the people are all brave, and to his astonishment, for they are Franks, the women virtuous. He tells us that their enmity with the Arnauts is constant, and this he illustrated by linking his two forefingers to indicate a fight. “Brave men,” he said, “who, when they draw the sword, never go back, and a fine country, but lacking the true faith.” Then came the leave-taking, and I presented him with a dollar, which he has magnified in talking of it to at least twenty, and he, after a few well-chosen, dignified sentences of thanks, pressed his open palm against my hand, and then pressed it upon his heart, saying again, “Mesquin, may you have patience, and may Allah not open to you the Sultan’s gate!” And so he took the road, shouldering his sack of “possibles,” and in his hand a staff, and carrying, God knows why, a wooden board, and in a little faded away on the hill track, out of my sight and life. Vaya con Dios, I never knew his name, for he was not a man given to descending to particulars of such a kind, and it is rank ill manners to ask an Oriental what his name is, the fiction being that he is so well known, to ask would be impertinent. It may be that he may cast up some day across my path, for he is always on the march; but if he does not, in many an Eastern khan and fondak men will know of me, not by my name, for that he never knew, but as the Frankish stranger whom he met a prisoner in the Atlas, and who gave him gold and more gold, so that he had to buy a sack to carry it away. And at the saints’ tombs, and in mosques, there he will pray for me (at least he said so), and I shall know that what he says will not be said in vain, for has not Sidna Mohammed himself averred that “the prayers of a stranger are always heard by God.” [207]

So, sadly, as if we had lost one we had known from youth, Lutaif and I wandered along the river; and by a stony beach, under some oleander bushes, came on a little tea-party, all seated on the ground. A little pleases Arabs, who in a measure are like children, easily pleased, and passing easily from good temper into rage, and nothing gives them greater satisfaction than when a stranger comes and joins their pleasure or their meals. So we advanced, and found they were three Sherifs from Taseruelt; Sherifs, but practically beggars, though white men of pure Arab blood and race. One was a little thin and wizened man, with hardly any beard, his clothes quite clean, but washed into holes by frequent soaping and thumping against the stones of streams. Quick, taciturn, and most intelligent, a hunter and, I think, an acrobat, and wearing round his head a yellow cloth gun-case twisted like a turban, which, with his meagre features and pale face, gave him an air as of a dwarf ghost or spectre, as he sat smoking kief. The other two were fine young men, but poorly dressed, and perhaps got their living by praying, or by writing charms, for all could read and write, and neither of the three seemed ever to have done any of that same honest toil which so much ennobles man. Placed on the sand before them stood a small brass tray, and on it three small glass tumblers and a tin teapot of the conical pattern which Germany supplies. Dried figs and walnuts were on another tray, and all were smoking kief. Close to them, on a little patch of grass, fed a black curly lamb, which I supposed they had reared and brought with them from Taseruelt; but they assured me it was given to them only two days ago, and now followed them like a dog. I asked if they intended to dispose of it, and they said no, they would teach it to do tricks, and gain much money by its antics, and as we spoke it walked up to the tray, took up a fig, smelt at it, but thought it unfit to eat, and then, after skipping about a bit, came back and went to sleep with its head resting upon its special owner’s feet.

We squatted down beside the three Sherifs and became friends at once, drank endless cups of tea as sweet as syrup, ate figs and walnuts, talked of Europe and of Taseruelt, and, I think, never in my life did I enjoy an afternoon so thoroughly. They asked no questions, thinking it apparently not strange we should be there dressed as Mohammedans, and I almost unable to speak Arabic, as if, for example, a Chinese dressed as an English country gentleman should stumble in upon a gang of haymakers in Rutlandshire, and sit down and drink beer. Much did they tell of the Wad Nun, and of the desert horses, known as “wind drinkers,” on which men hunt the ostrich, feeding them well on dates and camel’s milk, and flying through the sands after the ostriches in the same manner that the Pehuelches hunt their ostriches in Patagonia, save that the Arabs throw a club instead of the ostrich “bolas” which the Pehuelches use. In both countries the tactics are the same, the huntsmen spreading out like a fan, striving to join their ranks and get the birds into a circle, or to drive them into a marsh, edge of a stream, or some place out of which they cannot run.

The little dwarf Sherif got up and showed me how an ostrich ran, waving his arms and craning out his neck in a way which would have made his fortune on the stage. It then appeared he had been a moufflon hunter, and he told how they can jump down precipices alighting on their horns, how shy they are; and here he worked his nose about to show the way they snuffed the wind when danger was about, so that he looked more like a moufflon than the very beast itself. His friends smiled gravely, and said Allah had given their comrade excellent gifts, and one was to be able to imitate all beasts, and another was to run all day and never feel fatigue.

On hearing this I mentally resolved he should run to Morocco city with our letters, starting that very night; but mentioned nothing of my purpose, intending to leave Swani to arrange it by himself. We thanked our entertainers, gave them some of our Algerian tobacco, which they prized highly, and the deputation then withdrew. As I looked back they had not moved, but the black curly lamb had gone back to the grass, and they, beneath the oleanders, seated on the stones, still sat smoking happily, before their little tray, as if the world belonged to them, as after all it did.

Just before nightfall Swani brought the small Sherif ostensibly for medicine to our tent. When asked to carry letters he said yes, that he was poor and wanted to buy clothes for winter, and would go at once, and his companions and the lamb could meet him somewhere near the coast. I asked if he could run, and he replied “like an Oudad,” [209] and by that name we knew him ever since. Five dollars was our bargain, two in the hand and three upon arriving at the missionary’s house. He asked no questions save the position of the missionary’s house, took the two dollars and the packet and a note asking the missionary to pay him three dollars when the letters came to hand, thanked us, and said “Your letters shall arrive,” walked quickly off, and disappeared into the night. On the evening of the third day from that on which he went, a dusty little man knocked at the missionary’s door more than a hundred miles away, handed a packet in, and waited whilst the note he brought was read, got his three dollars and an extra one for speed, and when the missionary, who went for a moment into his house to read the letters returned to question him, he was already gone. So the Oudad, after the Persian flashed across my path, or I intruded upon theirs, we talked, made friends, separated, and shall never meet again; but the impression that they made was much more vivid than that caused by worthy friends whom one meets every day and differentiates but by the checks upon their shooting jackets.

Determining to leave no stone untried, Lutaif, who fancied himself on his epistolary style, said he would write a letter to the Kaid to ask for an interview. About an hour he spent upon the task, lying upon his stomach in the tent, and writing on a large flimsy sheet of Spanish note-paper with a small pencil end; but after so much trouble he produced a gem, crammed full of compliments, in such high Arabic that he thought none but the Taleb would decipher it, and written as beautifully clear as Arab copper-plate:

“To the most happy and exemplary, the most fortunate and honourable, the Kaid Si Taleb Mohammed el Kintafi.

“May God’s peace and blessing be upon you whilst day lasts and time endures. Oh, Kaid, thou art the wielder of the sword and pen. Fate and a love of travel have led us to your happy and well-governed land, and you have generously received and entertained us, extending to us all the hospitality of your thrice blessed house. May God establish it for ever, and may the hand of no man be ever higher than your hand. But, mighty prince, we fear to trespass too long upon your kindness, though we know your hand is never tired of shedding blessings upon all. Therefore, we wish to see your face and thank you for your hospitality, so that on our return on talking of you we can say this was a man. May Allah bless and keep you, and at the last may Sidna Mohammed welcome you upon your entrance into Paradise. Deign, therefore, to accord an hour to-morrow on which to speak with you.”

This missive, read aloud, evoked great admiration both from Swani and Mohammed el Hosein, and they declared it certainly would have a good effect. So Swani, dressed in a clean white burnous, which Lutaif had with him in his saddle-bags, and with a pair of my new yellow slippers, went off, and with much ceremony handed the letter to the keeper of the gate. Knowing the respect the Moors attach to letters, and the astonishment they show if any Christian can write their characters, I thought perhaps the letter might bring an interview; but thinking of the happy afternoon I had spent with the simple fakirs upon the stony beach, did not care much, knowing the happy hours that a man passes in his life are few, and of more value than much gold or all the jewels of the Apocalypse.