A group of interested observers assembles once more, reinforced by the smallest children, who were too frightened to venture out of doors last night.  Nothing disturbs the little company before we leave the camp.  The headman, grave and dignified as ever, receives payment for corn, straw, chickens, milk, eggs, water, and guards, a matter of about ten shillings in English money, and a very large sum indeed for such a tiny village to receive.  The last burden is fastened on the patient mules, girths and straps and belts are examined, and we pass down the incline to the main road and turn the horses’ heads to the Atlas Mountains.

FOOTNOTES: 

[11] “There happeneth no misfortune on the earth or to yourselves, but it is written in the Book before we created it:  verily that is easy to Allah.”—­Al Koran; Sura, “The Tree.”

[12] This courtesy is truly Eastern, and has many variants.  I remember meeting two aged rabbis who were seated on stones by the roadside half a mile from the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee.  They rose as I approached, and said in Hebrew, “Blessed be he who cometh.”

TO THE GATES OF MARRAKESH

[Illustration:  THE R’KASS]

CHAPTER IV

TO THE GATES OF MARRAKESH

    In hawthorn-time the heart grows bright,
    The world is sweet in sound and sight,
    Glad thoughts and birds take flower and flight,
    The heather kindles toward the light,
    The whin is frankincense and flame.

    The Tale of Balen.

If you would savour the true sense of Morocco, and enjoy glimpses of a life that belongs properly to the era of Genesis, journey through Dukala, Shiadma, or Haha in April.  Rise early, fare simply, and travel far enough to appreciate whatever offers for a camping-ground, though it be no more than the grudging shadow of a wall at mid-day, or a n’zala not overclean, when from north, south, east, and west the shepherd boys and girls are herding their flocks along the homeward way.  You will find the natives kind and leisured enough to take interest in your progress, and, their confidence gained, you shall gather, if you will, some knowledge of the curious, alluring point of view that belongs to fatalists.  I have been struck by the dignity, the patience, and the endurance of the Moor, by whom I mean here the Arab who lives in Morocco, and not the aboriginal Berber, or the man with black blood preponderating in his veins.  To the Moor all is for the best.  He knows that Allah has bound the fate of each man about his neck, so he moves fearlessly and with dignity to his appointed end, conscious that his God has allotted the palace or the prison for his portion, and that fellow-men can no more than fulfil the divine decree.  Here lies the secret of the bravery that, when disciplined, may yet shake the foundations of Western civilisation.  How many men pass me on the road bound on missions of life or death, yet serene and placid as the mediaeval saints who stand in their niches in some cathedral at home.  Let me recall a few fellow-wayfarers and pass along the roadless way in their company once again.