arley-fields, all in ear, though still green,
might have led us to believe we were in England, except that in the next
sheltered spot a white saint-house would be found, with its dome and its
palm-tree, perhaps a shady olive grove, allowed to flourish for the sake
of the holy place. Yes, it was Africa.

Farther on, an Arab village lay close to the track, no windows in its
yellowish flat walls, apparently no roofs: a stoned arched entrance was
filled up with thorn-bushes, and the tops of the walls piled with the
same to prevent outsiders from molesting the inmates. This warlike
tendency was again shown in another watch-tower, built, like the last, at
the conjunction of two valleys.

Meanwhile, the bare and uninteresting-looking Iron Mountains were
disappearing from view: another ridge, which met them at right angles,
spotted with argan-trees, looked in the distance like a tea or coffee
plantation on Eastern hills--that too faded from sight; and we rode
on--now through a blaze of flowers, for every hedge flamed pink and
yellow, and even the dry thorns were blotted with colour--now past fields
of mauve poppies and scarlet poppies and stretches of stainless blue. A
white saint-house stood out against the colour, its dome like dazzling
chalk, it shadows blue: we looked back at it from under an argan-tree, in
the shade of which we rested for ten minutes, picking up a few nuts, and
drinking long and deep out of Omar's stone water-jar.

Not far from this spot we came upon _Sok-el-Had_ (the Sunday
Market)--that is, a place where every Sunday a country market is held,
and to which the whole countryside flocks to do its marketing. This was
Tuesday, and therefore Sok-el-Had was forlorn and deserted, its rows of
little mud huts and its meat-hangers empty, not a soul within miles. They
are as old as Morocco, these places known by the name of the week-day on
which the market is held--places so strangely deserted upon any other
day.

Still we rode on for several hours, past Sheikh Boujiman Ben Hamed's
white house, while the sun blazed on the bare path, and the argans stood
too far apart to cast consecutive shade. It was with much satisfaction
that we saw our next camping-ground in the distance about one o'clock: we
had started early, and a long lazy afternoon was a good prospect.
_Sok-el-Tleta_ is named once more after its market--Tuesday Market. Even
as Sok-el-Had was forlorn, so Sok-el-Tleta in proportion teemed with
life. Held o