urden. He rides with
his knees up to his chin: he is a natural horseman, and looks at home in
his practically girthless and quite shapeless saddle, which must have
given him a pang, if ever he galloped for his life in front of his
enemies, and reflected that his safety was dependent upon the
breastplate. A man, before now, has, as he rode, unwound his waistcloth,
and twisted it round his horse's neck, for further security against the
saddle's slipping back.

Mr. Bewicke and his soldier rode with us: the latter a dark, lean-faced,
unwholesome-looking man, unable, like so many of his countrymen, to grow
any hair on his face--an obsequious individual too, inspiring little
trust; below his long blue cloak he wore brown riding-boots, embroidered
with orange, and fastening up the back with orange-thread buttons.

My little grey bustled along; but once or twice, when the road fell away
into a steep drop, his weak hind legs gave under him, and he "sat down":
we soon learnt the effect which merely shaking the feet in the great
angular stirrups has on mules whose sides have often been in touch with
the sharp points, and jogged forward wherever the bad road allowed.

We had left the city by another of its six gates--the _Bab-el-Toot_
(Mulberry Gate), the old name pointing back to an energetic past, when
mulberries, silk-worms, and silk-weaving flourished around Tetuan--when
the cultivation of sugar-cane, cotton, and rice in Morocco was more than
a memory.

Following for a time the road to Tangier, we branched off to the right,
and took a rough path winding upwards, passing a spring where women wash
clothes, three parts walled in, to prevent their being seen.

A little higher up and one of the countless saints' tombs came in
sight--better known in this case as the Robbers' Tower, where brigands
congregate at sunset, and from an excellent coign of vantage keep a
look-out on the Tangier road, to drop on any unfortunate so foolhardy as
to be on it late in the day. After dark no Moor from Tetuan would walk
near this saint-house.

Only a few weeks after this very ride a man was murdered on the Tangier
road, why or wherefore no one knew, except that his body was found,
brought into Tetuan, and buried without further investigation, since his
relatives were neither rich nor powerful enough to institute a search and
demand compensation.

Robbery in Morocco is almost sanctioned by Providence; it is made so
simple. The lonely tracks,