re was a lull, and we heard the mules feeding and the thousand
sounds of the night; then a wild blast almost carried the tent away, and
the monotonous undertone of voices would begin once more.

We were up early, spent little time over dressing in a stiff breeze, and
turned out to look at the weather. Banks of cloud lay piled up in the
wind, but rain never comes with the _sharki_ (east wind). The sun was
up--no chance of seeing it for the present.

Mohammed boiled eggs and tea, and in another twenty minutes we were ready
to quit our exposed camping-ground.

From the fondak to Tetuan the distance is only fifteen miles, half a
day's journey. The day before we had done twenty-eight miles, and ought
to have started at dawn, avoiding the pitching of our tents in the dark.
To-day we were off betimes.

It was cold, and I walked the first hour or two, Cadour and R. riding
behind with my mule, coming slowly down the steep, rocky ridge into the
valley in which Tetuan lies. It was a bad bit of riding, a continuous
descent, and the baggage-mules fell far behind: the rocky ravine was
uncultivated and treeless, scrub and rocks only on the bare mountains.
Sometimes a crest would have a saw edge against the sky, suggesting fir
woods; but as a matter of fact every tree worth having which is not
planted by a saint's tomb, and therefore holy, has long ago been made
into fire-wood, no coal finding its way into the interior of Morocco, and
mining being a thing unknown.

At last the slopes gave on to more level ground and strips of
cultivation: we had our first view of Tetuan, at that distance little
more than a streak of white lying in the shelter of the hills.

It was better going; and R. having jogged on some way ahead, I waited for
Cadour, climbed into my saddle, and caught her up. Here and there,
perched on each side of us, far above in the mountains, wherever an oasis
of green lay between sheltering cliffs, a village had sprung up, an
irregular cluster of brown-and-white huts, thatched with cane, weathered
to shades of brown, the whole pile hedged with grey aloes and cactus, on
the steep mountain-side--also brown--where, unless looked for, they could
easily have been passed over altogether.

These were the only signs of man; for Tetuan shared the speciality of the
fondak the night before, in vanishing behind intervening hills and never
growing any nearer. But the mules this time were fresher, or we had
learnt the art of keeping