: we lunched complacently, allowed time for coffee and a
button-hole out of the garden, mounted the mules, Mr. Bewicke his white
pony; the gardener, Madunnah, following behind on foot, carrying our
sticks and umbrellas, which burden was increased half-way through the
city by a bracket, but lately coloured in garish tones, vermilion
prevailing--it bled somewhat, but was to serve as a Christmas present at
Gibraltar.

Over the cobbles, under the Gate of Wisdom, out on to the sandy track,
and along the sea road we rode, the mules refusing at first to pass some
sacks of grain which lay in the middle of the path waiting to go down to
the beach. There is a gate tax on every loaded animal which passes under
the Gate of Wisdom, to avoid which the sacks are carried just out of the
city on men's backs, set down, and picked up in time by mules.

The first mile or so was not worse going than usual. Coming from the
right by a trail which led across the river, a string of women bore
towards us, bringing wood into the city from villages miles away--scrub
off the mountain-side. Their rough heads were bound round with
weather-stained coloured handkerchiefs: listless eyes looked straight out
from under lined foreheads. On each side of their doubled-up backs
protruded rough wood-ends--these kept in place by a rope over the
shoulder, grasped in knotted hands above copper-coloured muscular arms.
The bit of towelling round the loins, brushed by the wind, left bare a
species of knees and legs, carved by two thousand years of toil into
humanized Norman piers, buttressed with muscle, in which ankles have no
lot nor part, which have carried and still carry unreasonable loads from
childhood to the grave. These women walked in single file, as do the
mules and donkeys. And this is partly due to the space which the wide
bundles take up on each side, partly to bad paths, and partly to entire
lack of initiative. Why should they strike out a line of their own, these
"cattle" and "beasts of burden," as they call themselves? The old way
comes easier.

Thus life has moved across Morocco, without deviation, down immeasurable
years, and moves so to-day, along innumerable trails worn afresh by bare
feet after every rain-storm, footprint into footprint, padded hard and
smooth, narrow and polished.

The flats, after so much wet weather, were under water, and the lower
down the road dropped, the deeper the country grew. Our mules struggled
along at a slow wa