At last, however, it came to an end, and the trail opened out into the village of Semsar. Nobody was to be seen; dogs barked as usual; some kids bleated inside a hut. We rode by the crazy hovels; a woman carrying water emerged, and a boy with a baby. Beyond the last brown erection we came to a saint's tomb. This meant the village green without any "green." Two or three country people sat in the usual meeting-place among trodden-down weeds, talking and smoking their long pipes, congregated round one busy man, who was chopping a log into a plough with an axe. Around the tomb was a group of olive-trees, preserved leaf and stick and all, not a branch even of dead wood off the ground removed, by reason of the sanctity of the spot. However small a grove, it would otherwise have been cut down, as affording cover to robbers and ginns (evil spirits). Thanks to saints' tombs the traveller in Morocco still meets with clumps and occasional woods of olives. The sunshine glowed on their hoary twisted branches, and flecked the gnarled trunks; the grey foliage cast patches of dense shadow on the brown earth under the mammoths, whose broken lines and odd elbows supported such masses of quiet colour and solemn shade. We wound our way to the left among the huts. Of any road between them there was none; the mules could barely climb over some of the boulders among the refuse.
Once quit of the "green," we saw no one again, and got much mixed as to direction. Finally, we struck a path with a descent into a pool and below a fig tree, which, having made ourselves small, we circumvented, and discovered that it meandered in time to the outside of the village. Following, we wound southwards by a gorge along a rocky stream, which has the reputation of rising suddenly after rain, and not long ago drowned three mules.
Stepping-stones are not provided in Morocco, and it is generally a case of plunging through a stream to reach the opposite side. Near a city with good fortune a Jew may pass, the chance may be worth waiting for; but no Mohammedan Moor would carry an infidel across on his superior back.
In time a different path led us back to Tetuan, and we rode in by the Mulberry Gate at sunset, as the mueddzin was calling upon true believers to worship.
On fine days we made many such excursions, and exploited the country for miles round. Showery and doubtful days were devoted to the city and shopping.
Shopping in a foreign city tends towards the accumulation of white elephants, which, safely landed in England, work havoc in an English home. Long flint guns from the Riff, and old blue dishes from Fez, and orange-striped rugs from Rabat look strangely out of place with wall-papers and oil paintings. The East will never sit down with the West, and the adjuncts of either are bound to "fight." And yet we shopped.
There are fewer more interesting ways of studying the outside life of the people; a little gossip and less reliable information are all thrown in to the bargain. The little Tetuan shops are a species of club, for each Moor has certain shops at which he habitually sits and may be found with more or less certainty. While the owner and his goods remain inside the shop, there is room for two people outside on the sill or doorstep, and a couple of fat leather cushions are provided for them. Even Mr. Bewicke was in the habit of sitting every day at Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli's shop and hearing the news, between four and seven o'clock every evening.
Out Shopping.
He interpreted for us in our early days. We spent a whole morning buying humbells (striped carpets) at a shop where the owner was sitting on the floor playing chess with a friend and drinking green tea. All over Tetuan draughts and chess are played constantly on little boards, either on the doorstep or inside the shop. The game had its origin, like bridge and polo, eastwards of England, and was introduced into Europe after the Crusades, together with baths and other civilized habits. Our shopman looked exceedingly bored at the interruption. However, after much bargaining, we bought a humbell, having to point to everything we wished to buy, for no Moor likes a Christian to come inside his shop, because of his dirty boots. A Moor is either in a pair of clean yellow slippers, or else they are on the doorsill, and his feet are bare: he tosses all his silks, towels, embroideries, carpets, on the floor, and sits among them, while the purchaser stands outside, points to the shelves and heap, and trusts to the owner's divining which particular silk handkerchief is wanted.
