There were days when the mirage did for the plain the work that man had neglected.  It set great cities on the waste land as though for our sole benefit.  I saw walls and battlements, stately mosques, cool gardens, and rivers where caravans of camels halted for rest and water.  Several times we were deceived and hurried on, only to find that the wonder city, like the ignis fatuus of our own marshlands, receded as we approached and finally melted away altogether.  Then the Maalem, after taking refuge with Allah from Satan the Stoned, who set false cities before the eyes of tired travellers, would revile the mules and horses for needing a mirage to urge them on the way; he would insult the fair fame of their mothers and swear that their sires were such beasts as no Believer would bestride.  It is a fact that when the Maalem lashed our animals with his tongue they made haste to improve their pace, if only for a few minutes, and Salam, listening with an expression of some concern at the sad family history of the beasts—­he had a stinging tongue for oaths himself—­assured me that their sense of shame hurried them on.  Certainly no sense of shame, or duty, or even compassion, ever moved the Maalem.  By night he would repair to the kitchen tent and smoke kief or eat haschisch, but the troubles of preparing beds and supper did not worry him.

[Illustration:  THE APPROACH TO MARRAKESH]

“Until the feast is prepared, why summon the guest,” he said on a night when the worthy M’Barak, opening his lips for once, remonstrated with him.  That evening the feast consisted of some soup made from meat tablets, and two chickens purchased for elevenpence the pair, of a market woman we met on the road.  Yet if it was not the feast the Maalem’s fancy painted it, our long hours in the open air had served to make it more pleasant than many a more elaborate meal.

We rode one morning through the valley of the Little Hills, once a place of unrest notorious by reason of several murders committed there, and deserted now by everything save a few birds of prey.  There were gloomy rocks on all sides, the dry bed of a forgotten river offered us an uncomfortable and often perilous path, and we passed several cairns of small stones.  The Maalem left his mule in order to pick up stones and add one to each cairn, and as he did so he cursed Satan with great fluency.[16]

It was a great relief to leave the Little Hills and emerge on to the plains of Hillreeli beyond.  We had not far to go then before the view opened out, the haze in the far distance took faint shape of a city surrounded by a forest of palms on the western side, a great town with the minarets of many mosques rising from it.  At this first view of Red Marrakesh, Salam, the Maalem, and M’Barak extolled Allah, who had renewed to them the sight of Yusuf ibn Tachfin’s thousand-year-old city.  Then they praised Sidi bel Abbas, the city’s patron saint, who by reason of his love for righteous deeds stood on one leg for forty years, praying diligently all the time.