Happily Djedida is not far away. At daybreak we are securely anchored before the town whose possession by the Portuguese is recorded to this hour by the fine fortifications and walls round the port. We slip over the smooth water in haste, that we may land before the sun is too high in the heavens. It is not without a thrill of pleasure that I hear the ship's shrill summons and see the rest of the passengers returning.
PILGRIMS ON A STEAMER
By this time it is afternoon, but the intervening hours have not been wasted. I have found the Maalem, master of a bakehouse, a short, olive-skinned, wild, and wiry little man, whose yellowed eyes and contracting pupils tell a tale of haschisch and kief that his twitching fingers confirm. But he knows the great track stretching some hundred and twenty miles into the interior up to Red Marrakesh; he is "the father and mother" of mules and horses, animals that brighten the face of man by reason of their superlative qualities, and he is prepared to undertake the charge of all matters pertaining to a journey over this roadless country. His beasts are fit to journey to Tindouf in the country of the Draa, so fine is their condition; their saddles and accoutrements would delight the Sultan's own ministers. By Allah, the inland journey will be a picnic! Quite gravely, I have professed to believe all he says, and my reservations, though many, are all mental.
In the days that precede departure—and in Morocco they are always apt to be numerous—I seek to enter into the life of Djedida. Sometimes we stroll to the custom-house, where grave and dignified Moors sit in the bare, barnlike office that opens upon the waste ground beyond the port. There they deliver my shot guns after long and dubious scrutiny of the order from the British Consulate at Tangier. They also pass certain boxes of stores upon production of a certificate testifying that they paid duty on arrival at the Diplomatic Capital. These matters, trivial enough to the Western mind, are of weight and moment here, not to be settled lightly or without much consultation.
Rotting in the stores of this same custom-house are two grand pianos and an electric omnibus. The Sultan ordered them, the country paid for them,—so much was achieved by the commercial energy of the infidel,—and native energy sufficed to land them; it was exhausted by the effort. If Mulai Abd-el-Aziz wants his dearly purchased treasure, the ordering and existence of which he has probably forgotten, he must come to Mazagan for it, I am afraid, and unless he makes haste it will not be worth much. But there are many more such shipments in other ports, not to mention the unopened and forgotten packing cases at Court.
THE HOUR OF SALE