plains the powder “spoke,” and the burning douars lighted the roads that their owners had plundered so often.  Neither old nor young were spared, and great basketsful of human heads were sent to Red Marrakesh, to be spiked upon the wall by the J’maa Effina.  When the desolation was complete from end to end of the province, the Shareefian troops were withdrawn, the few remaining folk of R’hamna were sent north and south to other provinces, the n’zalas were established in place of the forgotten douars, and the Elevated Court knew that there would be no more complaints.  That was Mulai el Hassan’s method of ruling—­may Allah have pardoned him—­and his grand wazeer’s after him.  It is perhaps the only method that is truly understood by the people in Morocco.  R’hamna reminded me of the wildest and bleakest parts of Palestine, and when the Maalem said solemnly it was tenanted by djinoon since the insurrection, I felt he must certainly be right.

One evening we met an interesting procession.  An old farmer was making his way from the jurisdiction of the local kaid.  His “house” consisted of two wives and three children.  A camel, whose sneering contempt for mankind was very noticeable, shuffled cumbrously beneath a very heavy load of mattresses, looms, rugs, copper kettles, sacks of corn, and other impedimenta.  The wives, veiled to the eyes, rode on mules, each carrying a young child; the third child, a boy, walked by his father’s side.  The barley harvest had not been good in their part of the country, so after selling what he could, the old man had packed his goods on to the camel’s back and was flying from the tax-gatherer.  To be sure, he might meet robbers on the way to the province of M’touga, which was his destination, but they would do no more than the kaid of his own district; they might even do less.  He had been many days upon the road, and was quaintly hopeful.  I could not help thinking of prosperous men one meets at home, who declare, in the intervals of a costly dinner, that the Income Tax is an imposition that justifies the strongest protest, even to the point of repudiating the Government that puts it up by twopence in the pound.  Had anybody been able to assure this old wanderer that his kaid or khalifa would be content with half the produce of his land, how cheerfully would he have returned to his native douar, how readily he would have—­devised plans to avoid payment.  A little later the track would be trodden by other families, moving, like the true Bedouins, in search of fresh pasture.  It is the habit of the country to leave land to lie fallow when it has yielded a few crops.