That evening we watched a blindfolded camel turning a water-wheel, and some wretched prisoners, with irons on their feet, who shuffled out of the gate and drew water. A black slave brought Kaid Mohammed's horses to water one by one; then made each roll on a sandy patch of ground, off which he first carefully picked every stone.
The sun streamed in at our tent door next morning, but we were at breakfast before it had more than left the horizon, and soon on our way through a rough country of scrub and olives—a capital country for pig (which are shot in numbers), and practicable for spearing them, one would think. Jogging along little paths, with a cool breeze in our faces, which invariably went round with the sun, we came by-and-by to a valley, green and wooded with olives, where barley was growing, looking as if it had been kept under glass, it was such an even crop, and rooted in the richest soil. Crack—crack—ping! and a stone whistled over our heads: this meant Arab boys scaring birds with slings, made of dried grass, and probably after David's pattern.
From out of an Arab village a little black child ran with a bowl of very sour milk, which, however, Omar and Saïd appreciated: the child wore one filthy whitish garment and a bead necklace, a little inky-black pigtail completing it.
This was a day of all days, in that we had our first view of the Atlas Mountains—those mountains which we had come so far to see. There they were, first seen from a certain ridge, mighty peaks, snow-covered, filling one with an intense desire to travel into their fastnesses: a haze, however, hid the greater part of the range.
A countryman joined us for a short distance, to whom Omar gave a cigarette-paper and a pinch of tobacco. Again all cultivation was exchanged for uncompromising plain, stones, stones, and a soil like iron, on which nothing grew except the thorny zizyphus lotus, with the double row of thorns, one pointing forward, the other back, out of which the Soudanese make their zarebas. A colony of bottle-shaped nests, made of dried grass, in these thorn-bushes, tempted me to try for some eggs. The attempt proved what a barrier the thorny lotus can be. I was extricated with difficulty by means of Omar's gun-barrels and Saïd's hands; but not without one nest and eggs—they apparently belonged to a variety of sparrow.
A well with one tree, a spot of shade in the arid plain, intervened farther on. The mules drank. An Arab rode up, lean, walnut-coloured; slipped off his high-peaked red saddle, hobbled his mule, and lay down under the tree. Hot as it was, we pushed on. This plain is said to remind travellers of the stony part of the Sahara. In the air was a scent of burnt grass and flowers—a honey smell: every time a breeze came we were duly grateful. The mules clattered on over the stones until Sidi Moktar came in sight—a saint-house of the deepest sanctity, near which a country market is held one day a week. Up to this cluster of what Omar dignified by the name of shops we rode, and, dismounting, stooped our heads, and took possession of one of the minute mud-booths, the servants going into another next door. We could sit upright, though not stand, and there was shade in the shape of a thatched covering, while after the glare and flare of the sun outside it was as cool as a cellar.
From one to three we rested there, drank green tea after lunch, studied maps, took notes. But the sun was as hot as ever when we took to the open road again, plain before us, the Atlas dimly to be seen. Some oddly formed hills, from four to five hundred feet high, flat-topped, presently appeared: one, from its contour, is called Hank-el-Jemmel (Camel's Back). We rode past them. A layer of coarse chalcedony covers the flat summits, which would offer resistance when, ages ago, the Atlas wall was scooped into ridge and ravine, and the plain below washed bare, except for isolated remnants, such as these table-hills. We picked up fragments of chalcedony and small blocks of volcanic rock, or basalt.
About five o'clock we reached an Arab douar, or village, and decided to camp near it for the night. Twenty or thirty conical huts, made of branches and grass and anything which keeps out the sun, black camel's hair or a worn-out garment; the whole surrounded by a great hedge, or zareba, of the thorny lotus, not growing, but piled up, one hole left in the fence for exit, and closed at night by simply piling extra thorns in the space; a company of howling dogs,—such is an Arab douar, and it is probably unequalled for filth, though when the parasites become too many, even the thick-skinned Bedouin moves out, and a new douar is put up somewhere else. There was no choice as regards camping near such a spot: it may have been unsafe in the open—at any rate no servants could ever be induced to sleep except under the protection of a village or a kasbah.
It was five o'clock. An old sheikh or headman came out from between the thorn-barrier, welcomed us, and led the way inside to a perfectly impossible open space, a dunghill, amongst the huts, where we might camp; it was overrun with fowls, and covered with filth of every description. Therefore, though assured that we should be much safer within the zareba, and deeply against the wishes of the servants, we insisted upon leading the way outside, and choosing a spot as far removed from the fence as possible, though only too near for our own comfort. As soon as the tents were pitched and the sun had set, such a noise of goats (which had just been driven inside the douar) bleating, and donkeys braying, and dogs barking, and children crying, arose, as we prayed it might not be our lot often to hear at the end of a hard day.
An admiring throng had gathered round us while the tent was in course of erection, and we were sitting on the grass. One old woman squatted before us, cross-legged, not a yard from our feet, and gazed; she wore nothing but one woollen garment, apparently a square held together on the shoulders by steel pins: her skinny arms, legs, and feet were bare, of course. We did not encourage "the masses," but kept them at arm's-length with sticks.