The relations of these tribesmen between themselves and the city are more or less friendly, and it is comparatively safe to wander about the mountains as long as the "enemy," as the Moors call the sun, has not set. We were most anxious to visit the country whence these market-goers came, appearing first upon the crest-line, then against the rough hillside, like a string of industrious white ants crawling down the wall of a house; therefore we engaged a youth with a downy beard and hairy legs and the big grey donkey—the most active of his race—and set off one morning at half-past nine, prepared to climb into a Top World, like Jack of the Beanstalk, by means of a path which was less smooth "going" than his supernatural ladder.
There was a strong north-west wind, and it was hardly an occasion for "aloft"; but there was no haze; the clouds were scudding away to South Australia; it was a day for a view.
Taking the broken road towards the city, we branched off to the right, crossed a stream, and began the ascent. No one could ride at this point. R. tried a tow by means of the donkey's tail, and met with a remonstrating kick. Certainly, if this could be called "one of the Sultan's highways," it was an odd specimen. We scrambled up the east side of the range of hills, sometimes by a succession of rocky staircases, sometimes sliding (backwards chiefly) on loose shale: how the donkey contrived to look after its four feet must remain a problem, but the Morocco ass is brought up from birth upon stony ground, with naïve and simple notions upon the subject of paths.
It was a long time before our heads showed up above the top of Jack's Beanstalk (so to speak), and we met with a gale, at which the donkey's hair stood on end, and which occupied all our attention for a minute. We had seen Tetuan disappear far below us behind the elbow of a hill; the topmost point of the Gib. Rock had loomed into sight; Ceuta looked as if one might have thrown a stone upon it; and the Riff Mountains were next door, clear and blue. We had passed some red fritillaries and the bee-orchid, a little wild mauve crocus, and some magnificent clumps of white heath, which smelt of almonds and honey; had seen several pairs of stone-chats with their white collars; had sat down for many "breathers"; and at last were at the top, in a wind which flattened every palmetto-bush plumb against the hillside. It was a breezy spot for riding (and here one could ride, for the grey donkey was on terra firma once more); therefore we cut short a survey of the country below us, hurried off the crest-line, and followed the path which led straight away into the heart of the Anjera country. It was a good track when once the top had been reached, exactly the right width for one individual, and used by thirty or forty every market day—three times a week. At the time when the cave-men lived in England, single file was a standing principle in Morocco, and the practice still holds good.
The path was beaten hard, by bare feet, in the rich dark red soil, and had taken a shiny polish; the wind was held off us by boulders and small hillocks; we got along at a steady pace. On each side mountains and only mountains were to be seen, peak beyond peak, slope after slope, covered with short wind-tossed scrub and sharp, hard rock, except at any great height or in the prevailing wind; there ledge after ledge lay peeled by the weather, blistering in the sun, the scarified faces of the cliffs worn at the summits into pinnacles of gaunt stone. No mark of humanity, except the single red path, suggested that civilization ever troubled these heights, and there was hardly anything worth the notice of a goat in the shape of fodder.
The path rose and fell, skirting now this shoulder and now a gully, but keeping for the most part on high ground, here and there winding upwards across the sharp spine of a ridge, and, by way of some awkward staircase, once more landing us on the level. More often than not, the donkey had only himself to carry; the boy probably thought us mad, but there was no understanding what the other would fain have said. Except for the wind—and even that dropped—a great silence lay on the proud heights; they defied man to interfere with their grizzled débris: the birds had forgotten to sing: all around was that certain awed solemnity, always to be found, in the companionship of the everlasting hills. But the air was champagne; the heather was mad in the breeze; the sky where it met the rocks, an intoxicating blue. And how the clouds "travelled"! Though, in spite of that, the hills never spoke: like the Sphinx, whose repose no dance of lizards nor flashes of sunlight can disturb, they are "too great to appease, too high to appal, too far to call." Occasionally a dip in the hollow back of a mountain showed the sea beyond: there are few seas bluer than the blue Mediterranean can be, and this was one of its days.
The polished track led us on: still no sign of a village, nor any evidences of civilization. At last from the top of a ridge we looked over and down into a calm green oasis, "a lodge in some vast wilderness," secluded, sheltered, where it would have been good to pitch a tent and camp for many moons. We swung along downwards, dropped under the lee of the hill, and our path skirted the fringe of the green oasis. It was not many acres in extent; it was covered with short scant grass; it would have made an ideal polo-ground.
Water lay over a small corner of it, and beyond a shadow of doubt it had once been the bottom of a lake; indeed, the Beni Salam tribe believe that water still lies underneath the turf. Here the first sign of humanity showed itself: two goatherds drove their flock down to the water, and one of them carried in the hood of his brown jellab a few hours' old kid; they soon passed on and disappeared among the boulders and heath.
The long level lines of the green oasis were broken at the edge by diminutive bones of rock protruding through the grass. Sunk in the hollow of the hills, there was little or no wind; the sun glowed indolently down on the green lawn, tempting us to stay; but the foot-prints in the red soil pointed forward, and we turned our backs upon the flat stretches of sunny turf and left the waveless tarn behind.
No more emerald oasis, but grey-green scrub and stones on the mountain-sides: we were up again in a stern and desolate defile, waste beyond waste strewn with rocks. The distances were oddly deceptive in the rare, clear air: a saddle between two peaks looked miles away—we were upon it in half an hour; again, a turret of rock apparently within a stone's-throw was a weary climb. And still the red trail snaked on before us. Even the big grey donkey began to lose its interest and to require "encouragement" from the Moorish boy.