e wing.

A last canter along one of the rough rides through the scrub led us up to
the house, planted well on a rising sand-hill, a view of the sea in
front, the hills behind.

There are no palm-trees, and there is no garden, nor is there any water,
I was told, on the spot; but for all that, Palm-tree House might have
been a satisfactory lodge wherein to put up. The stunted bush and the
sand fringed the very walls. It had the country to itself, and there was
nothing _but_ itself which could spoil that country. It was cool and airy
and oddly quiet. Inside, tiles and open patios and big panelled rooms
gave all that could be desired: outside, there was an impression of
simplicity and freedom.

The stables were a great point, and the bobbery pack, which hunt pig for
five months all through the winter, accounted in one season for something
like nineteen full-grown boar, ten tuskers, and nine sows.

Palm-tree House belonged for more than twenty years to a British
merchant, who simply provided accommodation for any sportsman liking to
come out and put up for a week or so outside Mogador: it has still the
air of a shooting-box. The host, in breeches and gaiters and a great felt
wideawake, rode up while we were there, and offered us every
hospitality--a tall wiry man, with good hands and seat.

Had time been of no object, we should have moved on into Palm-tree House.
It would be a spot to visit at any season, for the climate scarcely
varies all the year round: the difference between summer and winter is
not more than five degrees.

Back again in the city and strolling round it that same afternoon, the
conviction was borne in upon us that of all saddening spots Mogador was
possibly the saddest--that is, to the traveller, from an outside point of
view: residents may have another tale to tell. But without vegetation or
cultivation within sight, suggestive of life and change and labour, with
the monotonous roar of the grey breakers beating its seaward walls, and
wastes of blown white sand to landward, Mogador is the picture of a city
which has lost all heart, and settled down into grim apathy, without a
vestige of joy or activity outside its walls. The overcrowding of the
Jews in the Mellah is a shocking evil, already stamping the rising
generation with disease.

Earlier by three-quarters of an hour than Tetuan at the same time of
year, the city gates at Mogador were shut at six o'clock, and picnic
parties of Moorish or Euro