The evening meal is a simple affair of soup, a chicken, and some coffee to follow, and when it is over I make my way to the kitchen tent, where the men have supped, and send M’Barak with an invitation to the headman and his sons.  The blessed one makes his way to the headman’s hut, while Salam clears up the debris of the meal, and the Maalem, conscious that no more work will be expected of him, devotes his leisure to the combustion of hemp, openly and unashamed.  With many compliments the headman arrives, and I stand up to greet and bid him welcome—­an effort that makes heavy call upon my scanty store of Arabic.  The visitors remove their slippers and sit at ease, while Salam makes a savoury mess of green tea, heavily sweetened and flavoured with mint.  My visitors are too simply pious to smoke, and regard the Maalem with displeasure and surprise, but he is quite beyond the reach of their reproaches now.  His eyes are staring glassily, his lips have a curious ashen colour, his hands are twitching—­the hemp god has him by the throat.  The village men turn their backs upon this degraded Believer, and return thanks to Allah the One for sending an infidel who gives them tea.  Broadly speaking, it is only coast Moors, who have suffered what is to them the contamination of European influences, that smoke in Morocco.

Like the Walrus and the Carpenter, we talk of many things, Salam acting as interpreter.  The interests of my guests are simple:  good harvests, abundant rain, and open roads are all they desire.  They have never seen the sea or even a big Moorish town, but they have heard of these things from travellers and traders who have passed their nights in the n’zala in times recent or remote, and sometimes they appeal to me to say if these tales are true.  Are there great waters of which no man may drink—­waters that are never at rest?  Do houses with devils (? steam engines) in them go to and fro upon the face of these waters?  Are there great cities so big that a man cannot walk from end to end in half a day?  I testify to the truth of these things, and the headman praises Allah, who has done what seemed good to him in lands both near and far.  It is, I fear, the headman’s polite way of saying that Saul is among the prophets.  My revolver, carefully unloaded, is passed from hand to hand, its uses and capacities are known even to these wild people, and the weapon creates more interest than the tent and all its varied equipment.  Naturally enough, it turns the talk to war and slaughter, and I learn that the local kaid has an endless appetite for thieves and other children of shameless women, that guns are fired very often within his jurisdiction, and baskets full of heads have been collected after a purely local fight.  All this is said with a quiet dignity, as though to remind me that I have fallen among people of some distinction, and the effect is only spoilt by the recollection that nearly every headman has the same tale to tell.  Sultans, pretenders, wazeers, and