and red fez, who called himself Larbi, was
playing about near the beggar: being able to speak a little English, he
made himself useful to visitors, and was rapidly exchanging his good
qualities for the drawbacks of the hanger-on: he came out with us for a
day or two, smoked several cigarettes in the course of the afternoon, and
picked us useless bunches of ordinary flowers. Remonstrance was futile,
but when no more little silver coins were forthcoming he left off
shadowing us.

We found our own way down to the great _sok_, or market-place, in the
wake of some donkeys carrying live cackling fowls, fastened by a bit of
string and their feet to any part of the donkey and its baskets which
came handy. On each side of the road and everywhere in Tangier the
obstinate steely-grey cactus, or prickly pear, dominates the landscape:
its fat fleshy leaves make as good a protection as the sharp-pointed aloe
round the irregular plots of cultivated ground. Alternating with them,
tall bound cane fences swish and rattle in the wind.

Steely-grey and a yellow-bleached white describe the vegetation of
Tangier, set in its white sand-dunes. Morocco is far from having lot or
part in the gorgeous East, as tradition says. To begin with, from the end
of August to the end of April hazy days greatly predominate, and thirty
inches of rain are put in: naturally the country and people take their
cue from the general colour of the sky, from its white-yellow light, in
which a wan sun is yet able to produce a glare. Morocco is yellow-white,
and the Moors themselves run from the colour of cinnamon, through shades
of coffee and old gold, to biscuit and skim-milk. Their houses and their
clothes take on the same whites and greys, yellows and browns, and the
sand and the scrub again and again repeat the tale. Perhaps it has a
saddening effect, borne out in the colourless monotone of the lives of
its countrywomen.

Presently we passed a skin-yard, salted goat-skins, drying by the hundred
under the sun, spread upon the ground, upon the flat roofs, wherever a
skin could lie, curling with dryness, the empty legs of the late owners
standing stiff and upright, like petrified stockings, pointing dismally
to heaven.

We overtook a string of camels as we neared the sok, strolling along and
regarding the skies, R. and myself with an exaggerated superciliousness.
They were laden with dates, carpets, and slippers from Fez, and, together
with mules and donkeys, con