The sun climbed
up behind the saint-house and solitary palm; the olives began to cast
shadows; the grass was silver with dew. We breakfasted soon after six,
our table out on the green lawn. Such air and scents of moist earth! It
was chilly too. The mules fed busily in the long wet grass; behind the
kitchen-tent the camel lay, chewing; an old sheikh turned up on a donkey,
and joined the servants at breakfast round the fire, at one of those
meals which were all green tea and tobacco.

Just as we were starting a party of fifteen sheikhs and countrymen rode
up on their way to a distant "powder play" at the fete of some saint, two
days' journey off. Passing our camp, they turned into a little
three-cornered field of much poppies and little corn, and proceeded to
bivouac for an hour or two. Tailing one after another through a gap in
the hedge, on the finest barbs Southern Morocco can produce, heavy, but
handsome in their way (particularly a white with flowing mane and tail,
and two iron-greys), they pulled up underneath some dense green
fig-trees, and dismounted in the shade, leaving their scarlet cloth
saddles to match the poppies.

There was colour running riot indeed. Several of the stately figures, all
in white, walked up to the saint-house to pray: one great man waddled
down to the stream (to be great is to be fat, in Morocco), and a few
began to groom their horses. The guns were piled: the sun glinted on them
and on the silver-chased stirrups, and blazed on the snowy garments, on
the poppies, and the saddles, one of which was blue, another yellow. We
were in the land of Arabs: the Berbers were left behind at Mogador, and
these tall lean horsemen, burnt coffee-coloured, were all descendants of
the sons of the desert.

By this time the camp was scattered: the camel had risen from its knees
and paced off under its medley load some time before, attended by Mulai
Ombach, Mohammed, and the donkey.

The Ain-el-Hadger guard had each received a trifle for his night's
services; Said had groomed and brought up our mules; we mounted, and,
followed by himself and Omar, perched on the top of the two packs, their
guns sticking out at one side, rode away. The first few miles were not
marked by anything of particular interest: the collections of huts and
bare walls which sometimes adorned the hillsides were far away; the
curious piles of stones in the fields, almost like scarecrows, were only
landmarks. But after a time we rode int