ney he made; and it is poor work putting money into the hands of the
nearest extortionate sheikh. Yet his garden was, and is to every Moor, a
source of great satisfaction and content: truly a field of the slothful,
a garden where the mystic finds rest and heart's ease, and the two things
which appeal most to sun-baked men--shade and water. It is enough in such
a spot to drowse away the sunny hours amidst the hum of bees, the rattle
of the tree-beetle; to muse upon some book of whose drift only a faint
idea is intelligible, content to leave its problems in the limbo of the
insoluble, where most of life's questions seethe harmlessly enough; then,
turning, give thanks to Allah, who has made gardens for mankind, and doze
again.

Farther on the path led us across streams banked with maiden-hair fern
like rank grass. Water had worn the rock into grotesque shapes, a
cavernous arch in one place, the banks, like a tunnel, almost meeting
over our heads in another. Immense blocks of stone barred the way; it
was not easy riding, but the mules climbed up and down rocky staircases
with much tact, while we sat holding our breath.

Over one of these obstructions the breastplate of my saddle, which had
only been fastened to begin with by three stitches of string, burst, and
I found myself almost over the grey's tail: such a common occurrence that
no Moor goes out without string and packing-needle handy; but this was
past mending on the road, and I changed on to the soldier's mule, whose
top-heavy saddle was no fit at all, and, shifting all over its back,
required careful balance on the rider's part.

The road was only a few feet wide, and so overgrown that, as we jogged
one after the other, trying to dodge grey arms of fig-trees, lying on the
mules' necks under dark masses of foliage which shut out half the light,
hatless, the stiffest bullfinch at home would have been ears of corn
compared with what we went through.

At last, however, it came to an end, and the trail opened out into the
village of Semsar. Nobody was to be seen; dogs barked as usual; some kids
bleated inside a hut. We rode by the crazy hovels; a woman carrying water
emerged, and a boy with a baby. Beyond the last brown erection we came to
a saint's tomb. This meant the village green without any "green." Two or
three country people sat in the usual meeting-place among trodden-down
weeds, talking and smoking their long pipes, congregated round one busy
man, who was cho