shes. For any unknown specimen some one
dismounted, and it was stowed away in an empty tin kettle for safety.

By-and-by we dropped down into a narrow valley, green and cultivated: a
lonely palm-tree or two stuck up--the "feather duster struck by
lightning" of Mark Twain. A fine crop of beans was growing on our right,
Indian corn and barley to the left: the land looked full of heart, rich,
and unlike even the Tetuan country. We came across a man or two working
in a dirty white tunic in the fields, and left behind some wretched huts
down by a spring. About this time we lost Omar's dog, which was to have
been our guard--a rather lame lurcher, which thought better of footing it
all the way to Marrakesh.

The country was full of magpies--not nearly so smart as our
Warwickshire mags, brownish about the tail, and with less white; yet
they could scarcely have been in bad plumage at that time of year. In
a narrow pathway we stood aside to let a camel pass: since we had left
the coast wayfarers had grown rare for the most part. The place at
which we had halted for lunch was El Faidar, within sight of one of
Morocco's countless little white saint-houses--Sidi Bousuktor. Now,
after a long climb over a ridge, we looked down from the top into a
valley--Ain-el-Hadger; and Omar pointed out in the distance the spot
he suggested we should camp at for the night. Descending the ridge was
the roughest piece of riding on the road to Marrakesh: the shale gave
way under the mules' feet; great rocks projected on the track. None of
us dismounted, however: Tetuan had hardened our hearts and accustomed
us to awkward corners, and the mules were clever. Slowly we slipped
and slid down into the most luxuriant green vale, set in the
scrub-covered hills, carpeted with fields of young corn, olive-trees,
gardens, fruit-trees, and flowers abundantly.

To the north, upon our left, lay the Iron Mountains, no very great
height, somewhere about two thousand feet, and famous for iron in the
days of the Romans and Carthaginians, who both probably worked them. Now
they are mined no more, and only known as the favourite quarters of wild
boar, signs of whose existence we saw for ourselves, in patches of ground
rooted and torn up.

We rode down through these fruitful acres as the sun was getting low:
here and there lay a little white farmer's house; birds were
everywhere--suddenly we heard a cuckoo, then a nightingale.

At a place where three little glens met