For many years the hardships of the journey remained fresh and vivid in Marzuk’s memory. Oases were long days apart, the brackish water was always hot and never plentiful, they saw no living things unless a viper ran across their path, or a few desert antelopes showed for a moment on the horizon. Sometimes, when the eyes ached behind tight-closed lids from the cruel glare of sky and sand, Marzuk would wake with a start at his companion’s cry—“See, Marzuk! they are taking us home again”. Then they saw Timbuctoo spread before them, the mosques clearly to be distinguished, the tall palm trees and clay-built houses seemingly but a few miles away. The camels would raise their heads and lengthen their stride. But the visionary city would come no nearer, and gradually it would fade before their longing eyes—the mirage that had set it down amid the sands had vanished into aching sun-scorched space.
Weeks passed slowly, so slowly that Marzuk’s pannier mate, a weakling at best, succumbed to the trials of the road, and was left to rest under a little mound of sand that the first wind would level. Marzuk, too, began to lose strength, and passed long hours in a state of semi-consciousness, but he had been reared well and generously, and before he had time to break down altogether, the oasis of Tindouf was reached.
The back of the weary journey was broken. Thereafter oases were more frequent, the caravan passed great weekly markets, the country of the Touaregs was quite left behind, and the natives met were men of fair skin, though sunburnt. The Atlas Mountains appeared on the eastern horizon, filling Marzuk with brief terror, for he had never seen snow, or imagined hills like those that filled the far distance. To the little black boy from Timbuctoo, the great mountain range appeared as the awesome wall of a new world, but his curiosity helped him to pluck up spirit and prepare to face whatever the future might have in store. The Draa country was left behind, the Sus country reached and passed, Tarudant being seen hull down on the western horizon, like a ship far out at sea; and one fine morning, when rosy light peeping over the snow-filled caverns of the higher Atlas found the caravan already upon the road, the Moors raised their voices and praised a saint whose name the lad had never heard.
Marzuk rubbed sleepy eyes and saw in the plains a long way before them a great city in a forest of palm. Countless minarets glittered in the early light, the sun lighted some river of size and importance.
“Oh, my master!” cried Marzuk to the Moor who led a camel by his side, “is that a real city?”
“Truly,” was the grave reply, “it is Marrakesh[[5]] itself.”
II.
The long file of camels came at last to rest outside the Dukala gate and Hadj Abdullah placed his praying carpet on the ground, turned towards Mecca and returned thanks. No brigand had claimed dues of his merchandise, and out of the twelve children he had bought or stolen eight remained alive—a higher average than most travellers could record.
Marzuk, used from early days to fend for himself, with no special ties, and a feeling of confidence in his own capacities that none but a Soudanee would have felt under similar circumstances, gazed about him in deep wonderment. Before him stretched a city far exceeding Timbuctoo in area and importance, a place surrounded by a wall that seemed without end; he saw more palms in one direction than his native place boasted on all sides together, and the minarets of countless mosques standing slender and erect as the palms themselves.
That night they slept within Morocco City, in a great fandak indescribably filthy. The tired mules were brought in with the slaves, the camels remaining in the outer market in charge of their owner. Hadj Abdullah hired his beasts in Morocco City, paying a sum equivalent to two pounds a head for the journey out and home. In the fandak he addressed a brief warning to the children. They would have three days’ rest and all the food they could eat, and on the evening of the third day they would be sold. Let them do their best and all would be well with them, if they were rebellious—he closed his mouth abruptly, but his silence was significant enough.