"AS ONE IN AUTHORITY"
APPETIZING ODORS
Just before sunset we reach a narrow, turbid river. There is no bridge. Our pack-mules glissade down the slippery bank and trudge unhesitatingly across the shallow ford. Fortunately, we have crossed the many rivers without inconvenience; but had we entered Morocco a month earlier, while the rivers are swollen by the April rain, we should have suffered tedious and dangerous delays at every ford. The yellow flood respects not even the caravans of ambassadors and ministers. Official pack-mules have been swept away, official bedding soaked in Moorish rivers, and many a diplomat traveling in state to Fez on some important mission has been compelled to doff his uniform and dignity, and to breast the turgid waters of the River Sebu or the Wad Makhazan. Half regretting that we are deprived of similar experiences, we ride on till we reach a place called Boghari, where we apply for the protection of the Kaid of the village. The traveler should lose no time in taking advantage of the laws of hospitality. In them he finds his surest safeguard. The person and property of a guest are sacred. A robber Kaid becomes an ideal host, answering for your safety with his life, guarding your property better than he guards his own. But the very man who shelters you one night may, on the morrow, after you have passed beyond the territory for the peace of which he is held responsible, swoop down upon your caravan with a cloud of gaily arrayed followers and seize such of your possessions as may have attracted his fancy while you were enjoying his protection. By so doing he also gets the neighboring chieftain into hot water, for failing to protect you. Our official letters from the Moorish authorities at Tangier command all Kaids and bashas to give us hospitality and protection and, when necessary, to provide an escort for our safe-conduct across their respective territories.
FRESH MEAT
Kaid Absalam of Bogari is pleased to order our camp pitched in his front-yard. We should have preferred an isolated site beyond the village amid the freshness and the flowers of the plain, but we feel more secure under the eaves of the official residence, a mud-brick hut, with disheveled thatch.
Kaid Absalam grants us the use of his front-yard, including the dirt, dust, and flies, imposing only one condition upon us. He has been informed by men familiar with the ways of Christians that they invariably travel with "picture-making boxes," or "painting machines," with which they do sinfully and wilfully break the Mosaic commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself the likeness of any living thing." The Kaid's will is that if we possess such inventions of the devil, we shall religiously refrain from using them in his domain.
