the course of a few years one saw a whole series of coins in vogue,
one after the other, the main transactions taking place on the coast
with country Moors, than whom, though none more suspicious, none are
more easily gulled.

A much more serious obstacle to inland trade is the periodically
disturbed state of the country, not so much the local struggles and
uprisings which serve to free superfluous energy, as the regular
administrative expeditions of the Moorish Court, or of considerable
bodies of troops. These used to take place in some direction every
year, "the time when kings go forth to war" being early summer, just
when agricultural operations are in full swing, and every man is
needed on his fields. In one district the ranks of the workers are
depleted by a form of conscription or "harka," and in another these
unfortunates are employed preventing others doing what they should
be doing at home. Thus all suffer, and those who are not themselves
engaged in the campaign are forced to contribute cash, if only to find
substitutes to take their places in the ranks.

The movement of the Moorish Court means the transportation of a
numerous host at tremendous expense, which has eventually to be
recouped in the shape of regular contributions, arrears of taxes and
fines, collected _en route_, so the pace is abnormally slow. Not
only is there an absolute absence of roads, and, with one or two
exceptions, of bridges, but the Sultan himself, with all his army,
cannot take the direct route between his most important inland cities
without fighting his way. The configuration of the empire explains its
previous sub-division into the kingdoms of Fez, Marrakesh, Tafilalt
and Sus, and the Reef, for between the plains of each run mountain
ranges which have never known absolute "foreign" rulers.

[Illustration: CROSSING A MOROCCO RIVER. _Molinari, Photo., Tangier._]

To European engineers the passes through these closed districts would
offer no great obstacles in the construction of roads such as thread
the Himalayas, but the Moors do not wish for the roads; for, while
what the Government fears to promote thereby is combination, the
actual occupants of the mountains, the native Berbers, desire not to
see the Arab tax-gatherers, only tolerating their presence as long as
they cannot help it, and then rising against them.

Often a tribe will be left for several years to enjoy independence,
while the slip-shod army of the Sultan is en