impression of the place. Briefly, it presents a maze of yellow streets, leading, here, between the crumbling walls of tottering houses; there, through narrow dimly lit bazaars with their tiny boxlike shops; and here, again, amongst the high white walls of the residences of the richer class. Then out into great open dusty spaces, surrounded by half-ruined mosques with tiled minarets, or gardens above the walls of which appear the tops of palms, olive, and orange trees, and the straight stems of glowing cypresses. Then perhaps one turns a corner and comes face to face with a drinking-fountain of exquisite tilework and carved wood, to stumble, as one gazes at it, into a manure-heap or a hole in the road, broken in the roof of some aqueduct. And beyond the wonderful range of white snow-peaks, rising some 12,000 feet above the level of the city, the silent majesty of the great Atlas Mountains.
CHAPTER III.
THE ASCENT OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS.
On the afternoon of November 1 a start was eventually made for our journey of exploration. My party consisted of the same men as had accompanied me from Saffi, with the addition of a dull and lazy negro, whom I had taken into my employ on the recommendation of a native of Tafilet to whom I had confided my plan. He turned out to be worse than useless, complained the entire route of the hardships of the journey, and insisted upon riding the whole distance, while I had to go most of the way on foot, gaining his point by constant veiled threats of exposing my identity. I had to humour him as long as we were upon the road, for fear of his making known the fact that I was a European in disguise; but on my return to Marakesh he paid the price of his impertinence and perfidy in a manner more in use in Morocco than in England—for on my making a statement to his master of his conduct, which was amply corroborated by all my men, he received, without my knowledge, though I do not think I should have objected, the flogging he deserved. His presence was a constant cause of anxiety and danger during the whole journey; and his coarse impertinent manner, his threats, his treatment of my other men and myself, so exasperated me, that on one or two occasions I felt that I could have ordered him to be flogged myself, and enjoyed the sight of it. While every one else was making light of the cold and our hunger, he would be cursing at me for having brought him, and stealing, if he could get it by no other means, the share of food belonging to the rest of the men. The least remonstrance brought a threat that he would inform the natives of my disguise, and thereby ensure my death. On one occasion it was only by an effort that I succeeded in restraining my men from murdering him, which was their intention during some night. Fear of discovery there was none, and their moral code certainly would allow of the taking the life of a man whose presence caused danger to every other soul in camp, and who used this power to obtain everything procurable that he set his heart on, caring little whether the rest of us fell by the wayside from fatigue so long as he could ride, or died of starvation so long as he could obtain his fill of food. I have no pity even now when I think of the salutary hiding he got when he returned to Marakesh, for a worse villain never, I believe, existed.
We split up our little party and left Morocco City by different gates, so that in case any information had reached the ears of the native officials there would be less chance of their being able to arrest our progress; but nothing occurred, and an hour after bidding adieu to my host, Sid Abu Bekr, our united caravan of men, three mules, and a couple of donkeys, had entered the palm-groves and was threading its way toward the open plain.
Before us lay the Atlas, blue and white in the sunshine, and seeming to bar all farther progress in that direction, of so equal an altitude are the snow-peaks. The scene was a charming one—the constant peep of the glistening snow seen through groves of palms. But the forest, which to the west and north of Marakesh extends to a great distance, does not to the east protrude far into the plain; and in an hour or so we had left the last palm-tree behind and entered the open level country, which stretched away to where the unbroken line of mountains rises from the plain.
At a small nzala, the merest collection of thatch huts with the usual zareba of thorn hedge, we spent the night, crowding into the little tent, before which our animals were hobbled; and soon our tin kettle was boiling, while the black slave-girl unpacked the tiny glass tumblers that take the place of tea-cups, and the old Shereef made a brew of the favourite beverage of Morocco, green tea with piles of sugar and mint.
Every one was in the best of humours. At length all delays were over, and we were started upon our adventurous journey, in the success of which all, with the exception of the negro, felt a common interest; and as we squatted round the tent we talked and laughed together, as cheery a little band of men as could be found anywhere.
Before dawn on November 2 a start was made. Impatient as I was to reach country where I should be safe from the interference of the Moorish Government, it was decided that our pace must be very slow, for a long and weary road lay before our pack-animals, and their strength must be husbanded for the climb over the mountains. So it was that we pushed on quietly, seldom travelling over three miles an hour at this part of the road, although the soil was good and the country level.
Our course took us in an east-by-south direction across the plain of Misfiwa, which forms one of the large bashaliks, or governorships, of Southern Morocco. There were many signs of cultivation on both sides of the road; but the dry summer had turned the soil to a light yellow hue, which rendered it no easy matter to see how much was agricultural land and how much merely used for grazing. That crops are largely raised in this part is a well-known fact, yet judging from the appearance of the soil at this season of the year it looks poor enough. The villages are few and far between, and although mostly inhabited by the Berbers, the original inhabitants of Morocco before the Arab invasion, their dwellings had not as yet begun to show the neater and superior style of building we were so soon to notice. However, as we proceeded and forded the Wad Urika, placing a longer distance between us and the city, the improvement in the habitations became visible, and instead of the thatch nuail, or huts, of the villages that we had been passing, we found houses built of tabia with flat roofs, which, though possessing no particular appearance of comfort or size, were greatly superior to the others.