and the countryside flocks to him to have its teeth
pulled out, its sores doctored, its fevers cured; and if the tabiba
wishes to go on farther, by whatever path, who shall gainsay him, while
he carries life and health in his hands? He understands their dialect a
little, he dresses as they do, and he brings no overbearing servants to
eat up their substance. Nor is he a spy, but only some harmless fanatic,
some quaint Nazarene, who thinks to win heaven by thus walking the earth
and doing good.

Thus several missionaries have penetrated to places in Morocco, from
entering which, Europeans are debarred: they have not "advertised"
themselves nor written books upon what they have seen. But the thing has
been done, and not only by men. Women missionaries have been where no
Christian is supposed to be allowed. Indeed, it should be easier for
women, in one way, to travel in forbidden territory than men, because
their sex is not credited with the sense which could do harm; and the
idea of a woman spying, or thinking to exploit the country, discover
mines, and so on, would be absolutely laughable to a Moor. Probably
women, with a large stock of medicines and a knowledge of the country
dialect, could travel in the unknown "Beyond" with comparatively little
risk.

There is one other way for the Englishman to see something of the
less-known districts of Morocco, and that is to travel under the
protection of a holy Shar[=i]f. Shar[=i]fs are, like the Sultan,
descendants of Mohammed, and they possess the holy _baraka_--that is, the
birthright of the Shar[=i]fian line. They are little gods, and they have
immunity from the laws of God and man. Their advice is sought for and
followed by the ordinary country people on every question, and their
decision is invariably accepted as final. There is no such thing as an
aristocratic class or nobility in Morocco; and yet the Shar[=i]fs answer
in a way to the same idea, for they possess a religious authority which
sets them far above their countrymen, and constitutes them, in a sense,
lords over the people. Besides, they act greatly as mediums between the
secular governors and the tribes, and judge upon various matters. It is
possible for a holy Shar[=i]f to sin, but quite impossible for him to be
punished, the obvious argument being that "the fire of hell cannot touch
a saint in whose veins runs the blood of the holy Prophet."

The Shar[=i]fian families form an entire class by themselves. They