CHAPTER IX
The stream of life runs, ah! so swiftly by,
A gleaming race 'twixt bank and bank—we fly,
Faces alight and little trailing songs,
Then plunge into the gulf, and so good-bye.
About the month of April, Morocco takes its head from under its wing; the bad weather turns its back on the country; the tracks dry up and are fit for travellers to take to once more. The time had come for the sake of which we had borne with the rains, and we longed to be off, to know something more of this strange and fascinating land.
May is a better month than April, up in the north, for travelling; April is often dashed with the tail-end of the rains; but our desire was to go down into the far south, and May and June in the south are both too hot to enjoy camping out. April is quite warm enough; indeed, Morocco City "stokes up" early in April; therefore we made it the middle of March when we said good-bye to Jinan Dolero and set our faces Tangier-wards, there to await some steamer which should take us down the coast. The odds and ends which had furnished us at Tetuan and were not wanted had to be sold—a very simple matter. The day before we left our white garden-house, S`lam and some mesdames, as in his best French he always spoke to us of his ragged countrywomen, carried them into the sok, as they were, on their backs; and they were sold to the highest bidder among the market-goers.
To transport ourselves and our belongings over to Tangier, a Jew muleteer was requisitioned, who provided men and mules for the two days' journey. After long consultations we decided to take S`lam with us on our travels in the capacity of personal servant and head cook—partly because he could cook, partly because, in spite of the Tahara-and-bottle-of-water-or-poison episode, we liked him, and he had been a good servant according to his lights. After all, he was probably as trustworthy, and more so, than any man we could pick up in a hurry down south—at least, everybody warned us that they were a set of rascals there, of whom we were to beware. Finally, he was used to us and we were used to him. So S`lam set out with our cavalcade, and we proposed to keep him while we were at Tangier, take him by boat to Mogador, and after our march was over return him to Tetuan. But, while "man proposes——"