the green fruit. But all too soon the argans came to
an end, and we saw this phenomenon of Morocco no more.

Nor was the exchange of the argan forest for the everlasting _r`tam_
(white broom) and a sun-baked, arid wilderness, a welcome one. It always
meant stones and sand and a general grilling, the r`tam, as it waved like
pampas-grass to the far horizon. By-and-by palmetto cropped up, the
fan-shaped dwarf palm, which makes ropes and twine, baskets, mats,
dish-covers, leggings, hats, and girths. Here it grew in the middle of
wretched little attempts at corn-fields--a drawback to farming, though
from want of water farming might well have been let alone. Topping a
rise, the whole undulating country was r`tam and palmetto: occasionally a
flock of goats moved on its face, tended by thin mahogany-coloured Arab
boys in dirty woollen tunics.

When a single olive-tree appeared, we hailed its shade for lunch. The
mules, hobbled together, grazed: Omar and Said lay at a short distance,
drinking green tea and smoking near the little fire they had lit.
Botanical specimens had to be dried.

That night we camped outside the kasbah belonging to the most powerful
kaid in the whole district: an immense reddish-yellow pile it was, built
of _tapia_--that is, of mud, gravel, and water principally, poured into
bottomless cases on the wall itself, and left to set. The kasbah had
lived through a siege or two, and looked as if it would "ruin" quickly.
From the arched gateway a crowd of squalid retainers emerged to stare at
sun-helmets and Englishwomen: living like mediaeval times within the
castle's protecting walls, the "feudal system" practically obtains in
Morocco in the present day.

Alas! the governor, Kaid Mohammed, was at Fez: his _khaylifa_
(lieutenant) received us inside the filthy and squalid kasbah, seated on
a doorstep--a better-dressed man than his retainers, curtailed perhaps in
intellectual allowance, who gave us leave to camp outside.

[Illustration: A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL.

[_To face p. 298._]

That evening we watched a blindfolded camel turning a water-wheel, and
some wretched prisoners, with irons on their feet, who shuffled out of
the gate and drew water. A black slave brought Kaid Mohammed's horses to
water one by one; then made each roll on a sandy patch of ground, off
which he first carefully picked every stone.

The sun streamed in at our tent door next morning, but we were at
breakfast before