were a rough unprepossessing crowd, but their wealth in sheep and goats alone was remarkable, and their stock was safe from molestation, for they were known to be relatives of the Sultan’s chief minister, a man whose arm is long and hard-hitting.  Since last autumn Menebhi has resigned his high office, reduced his household, manumitted many slaves, and gone on the great pilgrimage to Mecca, so it may be presumed that his relatives in the forsaken R’hamna country have lowered their prices.  Yet, ’tis something to have a great wazeer for relative even though, for the time being, loss of favour has given him leisure for pious observances.

At length the evening came, when the last mule was selected, the last package made up, and nothing lay between us and the open road.  Sleep was hard to woo.  I woke before daylight, and was in the patio before the first animal arrived, or the sleepy porter had fumbled at the door of the warehouse where the luggage was stacked.

    Morn in the white wake of the morning star
    Came furrowing all the orient into gold,

and gave to the tops of walls and battlements a momentary tinge of rose colour, a sight well worth the effort demanded by early rising.  Sparrow-hawks and pigeons were fluttering over their nests on the deserted battlements, a stork eyed me with solemn curiosity from the minaret of a near mosque, and only the earliest wayfarers were astir.  How slowly the men seemed to do their work, and how rapidly the morning wore on.  Ropes and palmetto baskets refused to fit at the last moment, two mules were restive until their “father,” the Maalem, very wide awake and energetic, cursed their religion, and reminded them that they were the children of asses renowned throughout the Moghreb for baseness and immorality.  One animal was found at the last moment to be saddle-galled, and was rejected summarily, despite its “father’s” frenzied assurances.  Though I had been astir shortly before three, and at work soon after four, it was nearly seven o’clock when the last crooked way had been made straight, the last shwarri[10] balanced, and the luggage mules were moving to the Dukala gate.

The crowd of curious onlookers then gave way, some few wishing us well on the journey.  I daresay there were many among them, tied by their daily toil to the town, who thought with longing of the pleasant road before us, through fertile lands where all the orchards were aflower and the peasants were gathering the ripe barley, though April had yet some days to revel in.  Small boys waved their hands to us, the water-carrier carrying his tight goat-skin from the wells set his cups a-tinkling, as though by way of a God-speed, and then M’Barak touched his horse with the spur to induce the bravery of a caracole, and led us away from Djedida.  I drew a long breath of pleasure and relief; we were upon the road.

FOOTNOTES: 

[6] The sok is the market-place.