Tafilet

by Walter Harris

A Well at Sunset

and we and our mules were thirsty indeed. Nor were there any means of obtaining water, for during some hours we only passed one small village belonging to a few shepherds of the Arab tribe of Ulad Dlim, and their waterjars were empty. The well was a couple of miles away, and not till sunset were they going to fill the jars again. Dirty and poverty-stricken their little collection of thatched hovels and grimy tents were, but picturesque all the same, with a group of women in dark-blue cotton in the foreground, wearing necklaces of large amber beads and coral, and with long plaits of untidy hair, while dogs and naked children stood by and watched our little caravan pass. Up we toiled until, passing through a narrow gorge, the scene opened out before us in indescribable beauty. At our feet lay the valley of the Tensift, far below us, stretching away some thirty miles or so to where the great range of the Atlas rose majestically from the plain. Green was the valley, green with crops and groves of date-palms, while here, there, and everywhere sparkled and glittered the river Tensift and the many canals that carry water from its stream to irrigate the surrounding country. A haze hung over the valley, that sufficed, without in any way hiding its beauties, to soften the effect of the fierce sunlight; so that beyond the river the plain appeared to shimmer in semi-unreality until there arose from the level ground the great barrier of mountain beyond, its summit white with snow, its base blue with distance.

Inexpressibly grand it was, yet not with the grandeur that rugged cliffs and precipices can give, for beyond everything appealed to one the richness of the scene. After the hot weary march across waterless plains, the vegetation was surpassingly welcome; and the dark forest of palm-trees, stretching for miles along the valley, was as cheering to our eyes as are the lights of his village to the storm-tossed mariner. There are few views in the world that can equal the first sight one obtains of the Tensift valley and the Atlas Mountains,—the strange mingling of tropical vegetation, of fields green with crops, and of peaks 13,000 and 14,000 feet high, one and all capped with snow, forming a unique scene. There, too, was the city, its minarets, like little needles, peeping above the level of the feathery heads of the palms, but still far away.

The glimpse of shade and water gave energy to our weary bodies, and we pushed on as fast as was possible for the tired mules, who, nevertheless, needed but little urging, for to them, too, the scene must have appealed as much as, if not more than, to ourselves.

At a stream we drank; then entering the palm-groves, threaded our way, here through a forest of tall straight stems, there through fields of green maize, until within a mile or two of the city we camped for the night at a small nzala, or resting-place for caravans.

As often in these pages this word nzala will be found, it may be as well to explain its purport here. Owing to the lawlessness of the tribes, small villages have been planted by the native Government along all the tracks which in Morocco answer the purposes of roads. Usually the inhabitants of these wayside caravanserais are natives of some other tribe, brought there and given a small grant of land. The villages consist merely of thatch huts and the brown ghiem or tents of the Arabs; but there is always a large zareba, or open space enclosed with a high and thick thorn hedge, in which travellers and their pack-animals spend the night. The village community furnishes a guard at the only entrance to this zareba, and in case of robbery the inhabitants are held responsible by the Government. In return for this responsibility they collect a small tax from any who make use of their protection. The system is a good one, and theft is very uncommon, it being greatly to the villagers’ benefit to carefully guard the traveller’s property and exact the small fee, rather than by stealing call down upon themselves the wrath of the native Government and the rapacity of the local officials.

So at the last nzala on the road from Saffi to Marakesh we spent the night, pitching our one little tent in the zareba, and hiring an elderly female, who possessed only one eye, to cook us some supper in her hut of thatch; and, considering that her fire consisted only of bunches of thistles, which had to be replaced almost as soon as they were lit, she performed her task with skill and success.

Berber Tribesmen.

The next morning, at the tail of our little caravan, I entered Marakesh on foot, grimy and travel-stained, and reached my destination, the house of Sid Abu Bekr el Ghanjaui, without attracting any attention as a Christian in disguise.