The forest was left behind, the land grew bare, and from a hill-top I saw the Atlantic some five or six miles away, a desert of sand stretching between.  We were soon on these sands—­light, shifting, and intensely hot—­a Sahara in miniature save for the presence of the fragrant broom in brief patches here and there.  It was difficult riding, and reduced the pace of the pack-mules to something under three miles an hour.  As we ploughed across the sand I saw Suera itself, the Picture City of Sidi M’godol, a saint of more than ordinary repute, who gave the city the name by which it is known to Europe.  Suera or Mogador is built on a little tongue of land, and threatens sea and sandhills with imposing fortifications that are quite worthless from a soldier’s point of view.  Though the sight of a town brought regretful recollection that the time of journeying was over, Mogador, it must be confessed, did much to atone for the inevitable.  It looked like a mirage city that the sand and sun had combined to call into brief existence—­Moorish from end to end, dazzling white in the strong sun of early summer, and offering some suggestion of social life in the flags that were fluttering from the roof-tops of Consuls’ houses.  A prosperous city, one would have thought, the emporium for the desert trade with Europe, and indeed it was all this for many years.  Now it has fallen from its high commercial estate; French enterprise has cut into and diverted the caravan routes, seeking to turn all the desert traffic to Dakkar, the new Bizerta in Senegal, or to the Algerian coast.

Salam and M’Barak praised Sidi M’godol, whose zowia lay plainly to be seen below the Marrakesh gate; the Susi muleteers, the boy, and the slave renewed their Shilha songs, thinking doubtless of the store of dollars awaiting them; but I could not conquer my regrets, though I was properly obliged to Sidi M’godol for bringing me in safety to his long home.  Just before us a caravan from the South was pushing its way to the gates.  The ungainly camels, seeing a resting-place before them, had plucked up their spirits and were shuffling along at a pace their drivers could hardly have enforced on the previous day.  We caught them up, and the leaders explained that they were coming in from Tindouf in the Draa country, a place unexplored as yet by Europeans.  They had suffered badly from lack of water on the way, and confirmed the news that the Bedouins had brought, of a drought unparalleled in the memory of living man.  Sociable fellows all, full of contentment, pluck, and endurance, they lightened the last hour upon a tedious road.

At length we reached the strip of herbage that divides the desert from the town, a vegetable garden big enough to supply the needs of the Picture City, and full of artichokes, asparagus, egg plants, sage, and thyme.  The patient labour of many generations had gone to reclaim this little patch from the surrounding waste.