Early upon the morning of the 30th we were astir, and heard a report that a rekass had been seen entering the castle-gates the night before. Still, everything went on as usual at Thelata-el-Jacoub, men came and went, tall Arabs and squat Shillah; our animals all stood dejected and half-starved; a little pup having made friends with my Amsmizi horse, who played with him in a perfunctory way. The prisoners on the flat roof sprawled in the sun, passing the Peace of God, on terms of absolute equality with other men, who paused and gravely gave them back their salutation; birds drank and bathed in the little mill-stream under the oleander bushes; butterflies, marbled and black-veined whites, argus, fritillaries, and others quite unknown to me floated along in the still air, or hung suspended over the petals of a flower, and the brown earth of the Maidan gave back the heat like a reflector.

Still no tidings of our long looked for orders to be gone. All our companions in adversity, the Persian, the man with the “sad heart,” the tribesmen in the tent which had been pitched close to our own; even the three Sheikhs from Sus at last had gone, having, after their long delay, settled their business and assured me of their friendship should I visit Sus, their minds made up never again to venture inside the lion’s den. Our tents alone, like mushrooms, dotted the Maidan, and over all the valley the late autumn sun shed a deep calm, making the hills stand out as if cut out of cardboard in the middle distance of a theatre.

The enormous mud-built castle, with its flat roofs and flat-topped flanking towers, took a prehistoric air, and for the first time I imagined I was looking at some old Carthaginian building; for its architecture resembled nothing I had ever seen, being as unlike an Arab Kasbah as to a feudal castle in the north, with somehow a suggestion of a teocalli, such as Bernal Diaz, or Cortes, described in Mexico; or as if related in some curious way to the great buildings in Palenque, temples at Apam, or the more ancient dwellings of the Aztec race upon the Rio Gila. Sheep walked behind their shepherds, who played upon reed pipes as in the times of Hesiod; goats went to pasturage, the kids skipping and playing with the ragged boys, whilst from the distance came the wild sound of the Moorish Ghaita, which, like the bagpipes, is ever most alluring heard from afar; from the hills floated the scent of thyme, germander, gum cistus, and the aromatic undergrowth of this last outpost of the European flora, jutting into the sands of Africa. The river prattled on its stony bed, and on its bank the horses of the Kaid went down to drink, and listlessly I strolled to look at them, thinking, perhaps, that I should have to wait until the autumn rains had made the mountain paths impassable, and that the Kaid would be obliged to send me back against his will through the mysterious passes of the south.

As I mused, drinking in the strange semi-Arcadian, semi-feudalistic scene, the Chamberlain, attended by his guards, crossed the Maidan, came to my tent, and, sitting down, informed me that it was the pleasure of the Kaid that we should start. I asked had the rekass arrived from the Sultan; but the Chamberlain would give no definite reply, until I told him that our men had seen the messenger arrive. What were the exact terms of the Sultan’s message I did not learn, but they could not have been extremely pleasant, either for me or for the Kaid; for in Morocco the Sultan never likes to be put in the position of risking complications with Europeans who might appeal to their home Government, and usually casts all the onus both of action and of failure on his Kaids.

Now was the time to make a last despairing effort to go on to Tarudant; therefore, I tried the Chamberlain in every way I could think of, but without success. Though I had not by this time half the money with me, I offered him a hundred dollars, to which he answered as before, “What is the use to me of a hundred or a thousand dollars without my head?” I shifted ground, and said I could not think of leaving without a personal interview with the Kaid to thank him for his hospitality. But here again the faithful Chamberlain was ready with a message, “that it pained his Excellency not to receive me, but his wound had broken out afresh, and that he sent many salaams and wished me a prosperous journey back to the coast.” So as a last resource I asked the Chamberlain “What if I get on horseback, and ride straight on to Sus?” only to be met with a grave question if I thought I had the best horse in the valley, and if, supposing any tribesman was to fire by accident, I thought my clothes were stout enough to turn a ball.

Seeing there was no chance, I made a virtue of necessity, ordered my tent to be taken down, and all got ready for the road.

The Chamberlain behaved with infinite tact, allowing no one to come near us, either to steal or ask for money, and took his “gratification” with an air of having earned it by laborious work; then shook my hand, and said he hoped some day to meet me, and that I was to think he had only acted as he had, by the orders of his chief. He then shook hands, first with Lutaif, then with Mohammed-el-Hosein and Swani, and took his leave, leaving us all alone on the Maidan, in a broiling sun, with nothing to eat, and ten or twelve hours of the hardest mountain roads to pass before it was possible to procure food for our animals or for ourselves. How all the others felt I do not know; but for myself, when I reflected on my journey lost, my twelve days of detention, and how near I had been to reaching Tarudant, being stopped but by the merest chance, I felt inclined to laugh. Knowing that almost all the houses were in ruins on the way, and that the only place where it was possible to buy barley for the mules was at a little castle called Taquaydirt-el-Bur, which belonged to the Kaid, and the Sheikh of which was known as a fanatical and disagreeable man, I sent Lutaif to the castle for the last time to get a letter from the Kaid to his lieutenant on the road. Quite evidently they were determined we should go, for in about half an hour Lutaif returned with the letter and a negress carrying some bread and couscousou, on which we made a hearty breakfast, knowing that we should get nothing more till night.

When one has little to pack, arrangements for a journey are soon despatched, and we had nothing but our tent and a few rugs; no food, no barley for the mules, and the precious stock of medicines, which was to have made my name in Tarudant, was long run out. The men all worked like schoolboys packing to go home, especially Mohammed-el-Hosein, who had never thought to leave the place alive, or at the least to lose his mules, and be well beaten for his pains. His spirits rose enormously, and he assured me he was ready even now to try the road by Agadhir. Swani sang Spanish and English sailors’ songs, not to be quoted until the “woman movement” either makes women accustomed to the tone of much of sailors’ conversation, or else refines our mariners and makes their talk more fit for ears polite, or hypocritical. Ali was like a man in a dream, and felt his mule all over to see if it had suffered by the long exposure to heat and rain, with barely any food. It winced, and kicked at him to show its love, and to assure him that its spirit was not injured by its fast.

So all being ready, and not a soul about, I mounted, took the black Amsmizi horse by the head and felt his mouth, touched him with the spur, and let him run across the empty Maidan, turned him and made him rear, and plunging down the steep path to the beach, just met the horses of the Kaid for the last time, being led out to drink. The wounded cream colour, now almost quite recovered, stood up and gave a long defiant neigh, and as we rode under the castle walls upon the stony bed of the N’fiss, the figure of the Chamberlain appeared, and waved to us in a friendly fashion, so that my last impression of the place was his grave figure, silent and robed in white, and the fierce stallion neighing on the beach.

About a mile, following the river’s bed, the trail leads through a scrub of oleanders, rises and enters a fantastic path worn in the limestone rock, cut here and there into pyramids and pinnacles by time, by traffic, and by winter rains, and looking something like the “seracs” formed in the ice upon the edge of certain glaciers. We followed it about a quarter of a mile, and turning, saw the castle of the Thelata-el-Jacoub for the last time.

But as I checked my horse, who, now his little spurt of spirit over, felt the twelve days’ lack of food, and hung his head, I gazed upon the monstrous mud-built, yellowish-red pile, marked once again the olive grove upon the edge of the Maidan, just caught the mosque tower with its green metallic tiles, the cornfields, and the wild, narrow valley stretching to the snow-capped hills, the river like a steel wire winding in and out between its steep high banks, and in my heart thanked fortune which, no doubt for some wise (though hidden) purpose of its own, had kept me prisoner for twelve well-filled days in such a place. Lutaif, in spite of all his piety, as he took his last look at the valley of Kintafi, I fancy muttered something which sounded like an imprecation on Mohammed and his faith, but yet confessed that even in the Lebanon there was no valley wilder or more beautiful than that of the N’fiss. Mohammed-el-Hosein felt at his beard as if to assure himself it still grew on his chin, and without stint cursed Kaid and castle, tribe, place, and all the dwellers in it to the fourth and fifth generation of the sons of mothers who never yet said No. Swani was of opinion that of all men he had seen the Shillah were the most like Djins, and beat even the Jaui, [249] who, as all men knew, are sprung from monkeys, in ill-favouredness of face and wickedness of heart.

Our feelings thus relieved, we set ourselves to drive our half-starved beasts over the mountain roads. The miles seemed mortal, and the scenery, though wonderful enough, chiefly remarkable for the unending hills, the frequent elbows made by the N’fiss, now deeper and much fiercer than when we came, owing to the recent rains, which forced us to cross repeatedly and get wet every time; for the snow, which now lay thickly on the higher hills, though the sun was hot, still made the wind as cold as winter, and our clothes like paper on our backs. As we spurred along, calling, when a mule stumbled upon a narrow path above the river, upon Sidi bel Abbas, the saint of wayfarers, we racked our brains to discover how we had been found out. The sun, the winds, the want of food, the rain and dust of the road, had by this time rendered us almost as dark as Moors. So we were certain that we looked the character, for all the passers-by saluted us with “Peace” and never turned their heads to look at us, taking us evidently for travellers from the Sus. My own idea was that the man we had taken from Amsmiz had passed the word along the road. The others thought, some one thing, some another, and so we talked away, till at the last Mohammed-el-Hosein resolved the matter, saying that Allah had not wished us to succeed. Once more we crossed the rugged hill, where I had seen the miserable donkey fallen on the road surrounded by his wretched owners, or compeers. Again we stopped to rest the animals under the oleander bushes by the stream; but this time all dejected, hungry, and without refreshment, but a pipe of kief, which Ali brought triumphantly out of a dirty bag, and which we smoked by turns, sitting like Indians at a council, waiting for the word.

Just about sundown we came to Taquaydirt-el-Bur, to find it full; a sort of festival in process in the mosque; mules, horses, donkeys, and armed men pervading all the place; a whistling north wind blowing from the snow; nothing to eat, and to be kept at least an hour sitting upon our beasts, whilst the Sheikh read the letter we delivered from the Kaid. At last a filthy negro came and called us in; whilst riding through the dark and tortuous passage to the inner court, my horse fell twice, once on a donkey and again upon a mule: and the confusion, struggling, kicking, cursing, and plunging in the dark, made me despair of getting through without a broken bone. When we emerged the inner court was full; men slept beside the donkeys, upon their pack-saddles; and on the plaster benches running round the wall beside them were their guns, their daggers, and their quarter staffs; underneath their heads their money, valuables, corn for their horses, or anything they chanced to value most. Luckily none of them knew that we were Christians, but thought most likely we were guests the Sheikh considered worthy of his care; for no one looked at us, and we were glad to pack into a room above an oil-press, smelling abominably of oil, filthy, and with an opening in the roof through which we saw the stars. Upon the doors and shutters were some most curious concentric patterns cut deep in the wood. They were not Arab, yet not like any European work, nor yet were made by Jews; but they reminded me, as the Kasbah at Kintafi had done, of the strange temples of Palenque, the patterns on the Aztec Calendar, and the Sacrificial Stone built into a side wall of the great church at Mexico. Miserably we sat squatted before a pan of charcoal trying to dry our clothes, and after some hours’ waiting, a man appeared with a dish of eggs fried in high-smelling Argan oil, which we despatched at once, and tried to sleep; but between the cold and the assaults of every kind of insect, found it impossible, tired with the journey and hungry as we were. All through the night a sort of TenebrÆ seemed to be going on in the neighbouring mosque; ghaitas were played, and every now and then a man broke out into a long high chant, the congregation answering him at stated intervals. Long before day I roused our people up, saddled, and picked our way through the courtyard where the travellers were still buried in sleep, then got upon the road just as the stars were paling, and a whistling wind blowing from off the snow, which chilled us to the bones. Mohammed-el-Hosein and Swani were afraid the Kaid might change his mind and send men after us to bring us back; so we pushed on as fast as we could go for about four hours, until the half-starved beasts began to tire, then walked a spell, and finally sat down to rest (this time without even a pipe of kief), and let the beasts try to pick up some grass.

Until that moment, so hurried had been our journey, I had not determined where to go; and after consultation, it being manifest we could not reach Morocco city by nightfall with our jaded beasts, and as I was not anxious to camp in the mountains another night without a chance of food, I determined to push on to Tamasluoght, the Sherif of which, Mulai-el-Haj, I knew and to whom I had sent a letter from Kintafi, asking him to agitate for our release. From where we were, the Zowia of Tamasluoght was distant at least eight hours’ march, and if we wanted to arrive with light the time was short enough. So we pushed on; stumbling along the mountain paths, dismounting now and then to lead our animals, all silent and occasionally a little cross. The road branched to the east, and separated from the Amsmiz path close to the place where we had seen a salt mine on our journey towards the Sus. Here for the first time we entered a real cedar forest; the trees not high, rarely exceeding thirty feet in height; but thick and growing closely so as in places to exclude the light. The trail led in and out between the trunks, and at times narrowed to about two feet in breadth, and went sheer down for seven or eight hundred feet. Unmindful of the proverb that “he who passes a bridge on horseback looks death in the face,” [252] we passed without dismounting till Lutaif’s saddle slipping almost precipitated him down the precipice. Dimly, and at an immense depth below, we saw the salt mine, looking like a glacier, and shining white as snow; the mode of working being to dig innumerable pits, from which the water ran into a sort of reservoir, where the salt lay heaped. Miserable donkeys crawled along the mountain paths, all grossly overladen; and men passed stripped half-naked, but perspiring even in the chilly air, bent, like Swiss porters carrying tourists’ boxes, under great loads of salt.

At last we began to leave the mountains, and emerged on to a broad and fertile plateau, much like Castille, and growing the same crops of wheat, chick peas and vetches, with the resemblance increased by the mud-built houses, looking so like the hills that now and then we came upon a village almost before we could be sure if the brown heaps were irregularities of the ground, or houses, so exactly did the colours blend. In one of the small hamlets we bought bread and fed our horses, and once again pushed on, till about four o’clock, after winding up an interminable staircase of rock, all of a sudden the plain of Morocco burst upon us; the great city in the distance, and the Kutubieh standing like a lighthouse of Islam, to guide the wanderer home. From thence the descent was rapid; and in another hour we found ourselves in a different climate, and again came to a country where it had not rained for months, but was burnt up and dry, with all the water-courses turned to brown holes, and a dull shimmering in the still air broken but by the grasshoppers’ shrill note. The next three hours were mortal, and about sundown our animals reeled through the olive groves, which for a mile or more surrounded the Zowia of Tamasluoght. We passed some water wheels, and drank at the first of them; passed underneath the curious apparatus like a switchback, supported on brick towers at intervals of a hundred feet, by means of which water is taken to the Sherif’s house; rode through some sandy lanes, with houses here and there; came to the gateway, and were met by Mulai-el-Haj in person, who said he had not thought we should have got out of Kintafi upon such easy terms.

No one could be more absolutely unlike our late lamented host than Mulai-el-Haj, an Arab of the Arabs, descended from the Prophet, but with little of the dignity that rank (in the East) usually confers on its possessor. A man of peace in fact, a semi-sacred character, and a sort of cross between the Pope and a feudal baron of old time; rich, influential, and occupying in the south the position held in the north by the Sherifs of Wazan. When at last our diplomats became aware that the French had secured a footing in Wazan, and by their railway to Ain Sefra a point of descent on Fez and on Morocco city, it occurred to them to secure Mulai-el-Haj, as a set-off to the all-prevailing influence of the French throughout the north. So they induced our Government to extend British protection to the Sherif of Tamasluoght; but the protection has been so grudgingly extended as to be hardly of avail.

Into the ethics of the European occupation of Morocco I do not propose to go; but if at any time that occupation should occur, it is certain that Europe would not see us in Tangier. The French have thoroughly secured the north, and as the Germans will no doubt bid for some towns upon the coast, it might perhaps be advisable to take the south, and so control the Sus, secure Morocco city, and thus keep a way open for the Saharan trade, and opening Agadhir, or some port on the Wad Nun, check French advance from St. Louis, Senegal, and Dakar, and their possessions in the south. I should prefer to see Morocco as it is, bad government and all, thinking but little as I do of the apotheosis of the bowler hat, and holding as an article of faith that national government is best for every land, from Ireland to the “vexed Bermoothes,” and from thence to Timbuctoo.

Let us rob on in Europe as we have always done since first the Vikings sailed their long ships to plunder and to steal. England has never lagged behind in all adventures of this kind, so if there is a general scramble for Morocco, let us have our share. Statesmen can surely find reasons to justify us, and if they fail, we can sail in under the Jolly Roger, after the fashion of our ancestors upon the Spanish main. When we arrived at Tamasluoght, nothing was farther from my mind than politics, the advance of empires, ethics of conquest, Hinterlands, and things of that sort, on which the opinion of the first fool in the street is just as valuable as that of the politician fool, who stumbles out his halting speech to his bemused electors, who elect him for his likeness to themselves in density of head.

Mulai-el-Haj ushered us into a sort of kiosque, built in the style of the Alhambra, with a small court in front, in which grew cypresses and oranges, and would hear no word of anything before he had seated us on a comfortable divan in the recess of a window in his guest-chamber, which opened on a little garden where a fountain played, the water splashing on a marble basin, and the scent of flowers rising up to the room. After the Arab fashion he never left us for a moment, [255] and whilst a repast was being got ready, set tea before us, and then coffee, and, to pass by the interval, fresh bread and butter in a cracked though lordly dish. All was perfectly appointed in Arab style, the china French, the basin in which we washed our hands of brass most beautifully worked, and a black (uncomely) slave girl with heavy silver anklets handed round the cups. In her confusion at the sight of Christians, instead of handing us a napkin she handed something which looked like the trimming of her drawers, and being rebuked in Shillah, retired in tears, and another equally ill-favoured damsel took her place. Her name I think was Johar, and the Sherif explained with gravity that negresses were as immodest as the hens, and that the slave had better have kept the trimming of her drawers to veil her face, though, as he said, what with the tattoo marks and negro features it contained little to tempt the eyes of a believing man. To this I gave a qualified assent, and through the medium of Lutaif guided the conversation on to more general grounds, on which a man, used from his youth, as Europeans are, to think all women angels in disguise, might comfortably join.

The Sherif having gone to the mosque for a brief interval, I walked into the courtyard to see my horse, and found him standing dejectedly and too worn out to eat; the mules exhausted, one of them lying down, with the men sitting beside them, too tired even to light a fire. Lutaif, who was not much accustomed to such trots, and who moreover had ridden a tired mule for most part of the day, had nearly fallen asleep during the tea and coffee and the long talk with the Sherif, now was a little rested, and strolled with me about the place.

The house was built in the usual Moorish style; with crenelated walls, flanking towers, and dome-shaped roofs. It had innumerable courts, a mosque, a women’s wing, a granary, store-houses, baths, and everything in the first style of modern Arab taste. All round the houses stood cypresses, many of great age and height; over the mosque two or three palm-trees waved, and oranges and olives extended for some acres upon every side. There was a garden in the Eastern taste, where water trickled in a thousand little rills; canes fluttered, rustling like feathers in the air; jasmine and honeysuckle climbed up the azofaifa trees, sweet limes and lemons with pomegranates were dotted here and there; some periwinkles, but larger and paler than those grown in Europe, grew in the grass; here and there stood geranium bushes, straggling and run to seed. Over it all brooded the air of decadence, mixed with content, which makes an Eastern garden that of all others where a slothful and religious man should find heart-ease, and reading in some book of things beyond the power of intellect, leave them without solution, and sit still giving thanks for gardens as a true Christian should.

The inside of the house was decorated in a sort of pseudo-Persian style, with double doors all gilt, each with a little horseshoe opening in the middle of it through which to pass, and on each side a formal tree like those upon the binding of a Persian manuscript. In fact, a modern replica of the Alhambra done without art, the gildings and the columns common, heavy and overcharged, and nothing really good except the iron gratings of the windows, and the tiles which, made to-day in Fez, seem to have but little deteriorated in glaze and colour from those left by the Moors in Spain.

The prayers over, the Sherif came back to keep us company, and sat till midnight talking of all sorts of things.

He appeared to think that we had great luck in not having been sent as prisoners to the Sultan’s camp, for if we had been sent, we might have remained for weeks journeying about with the army before we were released. I was not sure if on the whole I was glad to have missed the experience, but as it would have been impossible to explain my reasons, I held my peace. Mulai-el-Haj, being an English protected subject, felt or assumed to feel great interest in English things. He asked most ceremoniously after our Grand Vizir (Lord Salisbury), was curious about the Queen, talked of the rising of the Afridis, and hoped that God would give the victory to our armies, a consummation which in his heart of hearts he could not really have wished, for no Mohammedan ever desires that Kaffirs shall triumph over “those of the faith.” His questions answered with great detail, he launched into a disquisition on the present state of things in Morocco under the Vizir-ship of Ba Ahmed, “for the young Sultan rules but by his hand.”

What he communicated may or may not have been his real opinion, for Arabs are apt to say that which they think will please their hearers; but situated as he was—that is, being a rich, powerful (and tolerably selfish) man—it may be that his words really conveyed his thoughts. “I have known tyrannies by Allah, and the late Sultan, Mulai-el-Hassan (may God have pardoned him), was not a lamb. His father was something sterner, and their vizirs were apt, as vizirs always are, to fill their purses at the expense of powerful men. But since I first became a man, never a state of things so bad as now. Ba Ahmed passes all measure, grinds the faces of the poor, maintains the Sultan in a state of tutelage, taking his wives if so it pleases him, and sending them to his own house; he also sends the public money into France and puts it in their cursed banks, so that if the time for vengeance comes, he can escape and live upon it.” Then looking round the room and moving up his cushions close to mine and laying one hand on my arm, he asked, “Do you catch all I say?” for poor Lutaif had almost dropped asleep. I understood him as he spoke slow and plainly, and he began. “Has England quite forgotten us, or does she sleep? Time was when she was not wont to wait long when a country lay open as does Morocco to her power.” I thought he understood our policy and what has made us so beloved by everyone, so nodded, and he went on. “I can insure the southern chiefs of all the tribes. I, Mulai-el-Haj, who speak, but who through the intrigues of Ba Ahmed dare not leave his house; twice have they fired at me walking in my own garden, once when on my horse almost a mile outside, and even now I know that men are waiting for me did I go out. But still I can insure the southern chiefs from here to Tazerouelt, westward to Tuats, to Tafilet, and through the Atlas; the dwellers in the plain around the city of Morocco all either send emissaries or visit me by night. I tell you, even the wildest of those who think a Christian is not a human being are so hard pressed, that if the English came they would meet them on the road and pour out milk. [259] God instituted government, as he made moon and sun, set one by day to shine, the other to guide wanderers by night, and as he set the stars in the blue heavens, so he set Kaids and Governors, Sheikhs, Mokadems, Cadis, and all the hierarchy of rulers, each in his place to rule mankind. The tail can never be so honourable as is the head, and whilst men still exist they must be ruled, ruled justly; but this Ba Ahmed knows no justice in his heart.” Passion, O’ me, I thought, he is no socialist, nor for that matter is the poorest Arab, all thinking that authority came straight from God. Then he continued, “For two years I have never dared to go to Morocco city, though but three hours away. My houses there are ruined. Ba Ahmed has taken one of them, and the other stands open a prey to wind and rain, with all the woodwork torn away and burnt. Your ‘Bashador’ two years ago advised me to make friends if possible with the Vizir. Therefore I bought a female slave, not to go empty-handed for I knew well that those in office always expect a present from all those they see. Three hundred dollars did I pay for the girl; not that she was a houri whom the sheep would lift their heads to look at if she walked across a field, but passable, and fitting to present to a man who like Ba Ahmed filled the office of Vizir.

“And so I went to see my enemy. Why he should be my enemy I do not know, except that I am rich and am known to favour England, which he detests; but as it is, may Allah put his mercy some day into the hearts of flint. The girl I placed upon a mule, and taking with me twenty or thirty well-armed men, rode to Morocco city. Arrived before his door, I had to wait two hours, I a Sherif, to wait two hours to please the mulatto dog; and then the slave who led me to him brought me through many passages and left me standing outside a half-opened door, whilst he went in. Long did I stand there, and being angry at the indignities that I was passing through, forbore to listen till at last I heard Ba Ahmed say to his slave, ‘Where is the man?’ The negro answered, ‘He is come,’ and then Ba Ahmed angrily replied, ‘Did you not take him where I told you?’ (i.e. to be killed), and the slave excused himself, saying: ‘I thought you wanted him in here.’ After a moment I heard Ba Ahmed say: ‘I told you plainly to take him to be killed, but God has spared him, let him come in.’ Then the slave threw the door open, and I advanced, was kindly welcomed, sat and drank tea, thinking each cup was poisoned, but made no sign, knowing that Allah, who had spared my life a moment previously, could turn the poison into sugar, if he willed it so.

“We sat and talked, and then I gave the slave girl to him, and she was led away into his house. I took my leave, and he with courteous words urged on me return and visit him; but who that once escapes from the lion’s den places his head again beneath his paw? God has indeed been gracious to me, praise his name, The One.” As he stopped speaking I thought, indeed, who that would pity a snake-charmer who is bitten by a snake, or any one who cometh near wild beasts? I did not say so, but confined myself to praises of his prudence and of the special providence which had saved his life.

Then I enquired if he had got my letter from Kintafi, saying jocularly that I had looked for him to come to my assistance waving a Union Jack. To my surprise he denied all knowledge of the letter, and said he had only heard of my captivity by accident. On going to Morocco city, the day after, I found a special messenger had been sent off to him bearing the letter; but after all blessed are they who expect little, they shall be satisfied.

At midnight, and when Lutaif had long subsided into slumber on the divan, leaving me to puzzle out the worthy gentleman’s discourse as best I could, he took his leave after urging me warmly to bear his compliments to our Grand Vizir. I pitilessly woke up Lutaif and had a consultation with him, what we should do, it being quite impossible for the animals to return to Mogador without some rest, and equally impossible to remain at Tamasluoght, where the Sherif would let us pay for nothing, either for ourselves or for our beasts. Morocco city was but three hours off, and as I expected letters there, we arranged to stop two or three days and feed our animals, and then push on across the plains for Mogador. Next morning saw us in the saddle by ten o’clock; and after a courteous exchange of compliments with the Sherif, and renewed entreaties on his part to put his view of the state of affairs in Morocco before the Grand Vizir on my return, we took our leave.

Thus for the second time I passed a night at Tamasluoght, having once, four years before, been there with Mr. Harris [262] on the occasion when the Sherif was agitating for British protection; and as I saw him standing before his door and bidding us good-bye, a courteous, prosperous, saintly Moorish gentleman, it came back to my mind that I had said to Mr. Harris that his protection, as far as English interests were concerned, was thrown away.

If we protect at all, except from pure philanthropy, we should protect lean, sunburnt sheikhs, who pass their lives on horseback, and at whose call spears and long guns rise from the desert like frozen reeds stick through the ice in ponds in winter time; and if that sort is not available, why those of the same kidney as the man in whose house I slept next night, Abu Beckr el Ghanjaui, prince of all Moorish intriguers and diplomatists; one who will stick to any cause through thick and thin if it is worth his while, and who, I fancy, if he chose to speak all that he knows of British policy in Morocco, could make some diplomatic folk get up and howl, or send them snorting like an Indian pony about the Foreign Office.