he went leading two mules laden with silver.  “And when I came to him,” said the old man, “I said, ’By Allah’s grace I am rich, so I have brought you some share of my wealth.’  But he would not even count the bags.  He called with a loud voice for his wife, and cried to her, ’See now what this son of shame would do to me.  He would give me his miserable money.’  And then in very great anger he drove me from his presence and bade me never come near him again bearing a gift.  What shall be said of a man like that, to whom Allah had given the wisdom to become a Bashador and the foolishness to reject a present?  Two mules, remember, and each one with as many bags of Spanish dollars as it could carry.  Truly the ways of your Bashadors are past belief.”  I agreed heartily with Sidi Boubikir; a day’s discourse had not made clear any other aspect of the case.

FOOTNOTES: 

[27] “In Paradise are rivers of incorruptible water; and rivers of milk, the taste whereof changes not; and rivers of wine, pleasant unto those who drink; and rivers of clarified honey; and in Paradise the faithful shall have all kinds of fruits, and pardon from their God.”—­Al Koran; Sura 47, “Mohammed.”

[28] The late Sir John Drummond Hay, whose name is honourably remembered to this day throughout the Moghreb.

[29] When a Sultan appears in public on a white horse, it is for sign that he is pleased; a black horse, on the other hand, is ominous to them that understand.

[30] Literally “Learned Ones,” a theological cabinet, the number of whose members is known to no man, the weight of whose decisions is felt throughout Morocco.

[31] 1873-94.

[32] Hareem.

[33] One of the titles of a Sultan.  The “Lofty Portal” ("Sublime Porte”) and the “Sublime Presence” are among the others.

[34] Mohammed said:  “Every painter is in Hell Fire, and Allah will appoint a person at the day of Resurrection to punish him for every picture he shall have drawn, and he shall be punished in Hell.  So, if ye must make pictures, make them of trees and things without souls.”

[35] The reader will recognise the Hadj’s reference to bicycles, cameras, motor-cars, and other mechanical toys.

[36] Melinite shells.

[37] The stork.

[38] Literally, “Father of the she-ass,” the Pretender who conducted a successful campaign against the Sultan in 1902 and 1903, and is still an active enemy of the Filali dynasty.

[39] “The Praise to Allah.”

[40] A Moorish lute.

[41] Literally, “In the name of God.”

[42] The late Sir William Kirby Green.

THROUGH A SOUTHERN PROVINCE

[Illustration:  AN ARAB STEED]

CHAPTER IX

THROUGH A SOUTHERN PROVINCE