Basha or his khalifa quite invariably does.  British subjects may not give protection,—­happily the British ideals of justice and fair-play have forbidden the much-abused practice,—­and the most the Englishman can do is to enter into a trading partnership with a Moor and secure for him a certificate of limited protection called “mukhalat,” from the name of the person who holds it.  Great Britain has never abused the Protection system, and there are fewer protected Moors in the service or partnership of Britons throughout all Morocco than France has in any single town of importance.

If I had held the power and the will to give protection, I might have been in Morocco to-day, master of a house and a household, drawing half the produce of many fields and half the price of flocks of sheep and herds of goats.  Few mornings passed without bringing some persecuted farmer to the camp, generally in the heat of the day, when we rested on his land.  He would be a tall, vigorous man, burnt brown by the sun, and he would point to his fields and flocks, “I have so many sheep and goats, so many oxen for the plough, so many mules and horses, so much grain unharvested, so much in store.  Give me protection, that I may live without fear of my kaid, and half of all I own shall be yours.”  Then I had to explain through Salam that I had no power to help him, that my Government would do no more than protect me.  It was hard for the applicants to learn that they must go unaided.  The harvest was newly gathered, it had survived rain and blight and locusts, and now they had to wait the arrival of their kaid or his khalifa, who would seize all they could not conceal,—­hawk, locust, and blight in one.

At the village called after its patron saint, Sidi B’noor, a little deputation of tribesmen brought grievances for an airing.  We sat in the scanty shade of the zowia wall.  M’Barak, wise man, remained by the side of a little pool born of the winter rains; he had tethered his horse and was sleeping patiently in the shadow cast by this long-suffering animal.  The headman, who had seen my sporting guns, introduced himself by sending a polite message to beg that none of the birds that fluttered or brooded by the shrine might be shot, for that they were all sacred.  Needless perhaps to say that the idea of shooting at noonday in Southern Morocco was far enough from my thoughts, and I sent back an assurance that brought half a dozen of the village notables round us as soon as lunch was over.  Strangely enough, they wanted protection—­but it was sought on account of the Sultan’s protected subjects.  “The men who have protection between this place and Djedida,” declared their spokesman, sorrowfully, “have no fear of Allah or His Prophet.  They brawl in our markets and rob us of our goods.  They insult our houses,[14] they are without shame, and because of their protection our lives have become very bitter.”

“Have you been to your Basha?” I asked the headman.