red a duty; and at last I had to do what I could myself. I extorted
a promise that he would try and arrange to take blood-money, but as he
left the door his eye fell on a broken walking-stick.

"Oh, do give me that! It's no use to you, and it _would_ make such a
nice prop for my gun, as I am a very bad shot, and we mean to wait
outside for them in the dark."

The sequel I have never heard.

Up in those mountains every one lives in fortified dwellings--big men
in citadels, others in wall-girt villages, all from time to time
at war with one another, or with the dwellers in some neighbouring
valley. Fighting is their element; as soon as "the powder speaks"
there are plenty to answer, for every one carries his gun, and it is
wonderful how soon upon these barren hills an armed crowd can muster.
Their life is a hard fight with Nature; all they ask is to be left
alone to fight it out among themselves. Even on the plains among the
Arabs and the mixed tribes described as Moors, things are not much
better, for there, too, vendettas and cattle lifting keep them at
loggerheads, and there is nothing the clansmen like so well as a raid
on the Governor's kasbah or castle. These kasbahs are great walled
strongholds dotted about the country; in times of peace surrounded by
groups of huts and tents, whose inhabitants take refuge inside when
their neighbours appear. The high walls and towers are built of mud
concrete, often red like the Alhambra, the surface of which stands the
weather ill, but which, when kept in repair, lasts for centuries.

The Reefian Berbers are among the finest men in Morocco--warlike and
fierce, it is true, from long habit and training; but they have many
excellent qualities, in addition to stalwart frames. "If you don't
want to be robbed," say they, "don't come our way. We only care to see
men who can fight, with whom we may try our luck." They will come and
work for Europeans, forming friendships among them, and if it were
not for the suspicion of those who have not done so, who always fear
political agents and spies, they would often be willing to take
Europeans through their land. I have more than once been invited to
go as a Moor. But the ideas they get of Europeans in Tangier do not
predispose to friendship, and they will not allow them to enter their
territories if they can help it. Only those who are in subjection to
the Sultan permit them to do so freely.

The men are a hardy, sturdy race, wiry and li