d packed his goods on to the camel's
back and was flying from the tax-gatherer. To be sure, he might meet
robbers on the way to the province of M'touga, which was his destination,
but they would do no more than the kaid of his own district; they might
even do less. He had been many days upon the road, and was quaintly
hopeful. I could not help thinking of prosperous men one meets at home,
who declare, in the intervals of a costly dinner, that the Income Tax is
an imposition that justifies the strongest protest, even to the point of
repudiating the Government that puts it up by twopence in the pound. Had
anybody been able to assure this old wanderer that his kaid or khalifa
would be content with half the produce of his land, how cheerfully would
he have returned to his native douar, how readily he would have--devised
plans to avoid payment. A little later the track would be trodden by other
families, moving, like the true Bedouins, in search of fresh pasture. It
is the habit of the country to leave land to lie fallow when it has
yielded a few crops.

There were days when the mirage did for the plain the work that man had
neglected. It set great cities on the waste land as though for our sole
benefit. I saw walls and battlements, stately mosques, cool gardens, and
rivers where caravans of camels halted for rest and water. Several times
we were deceived and hurried on, only to find that the wonder city, like
the _ignis fatuus_ of our own marshlands, receded as we approached and
finally melted away altogether. Then the Maalem, after taking refuge with
Allah from Satan the Stoned, who set false cities before the eyes of tired
travellers, would revile the mules and horses for needing a mirage to urge
them on the way; he would insult the fair fame of their mothers and swear
that their sires were such beasts as no Believer would bestride. It is a
fact that when the Maalem lashed our animals with his tongue they made
haste to improve their pace, if only for a few minutes, and Salam,
listening with an expression of some concern at the sad family history of
the beasts--he had a stinging tongue for oaths himself--assured me that
their sense of shame hurried them on. Certainly no sense of shame, or
duty, or even compassion, ever moved the Maalem. By night he would repair
to the kitchen tent and smoke kief or eat haschisch, but the troubles of
preparing beds and supper did not worry him.

[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO MARRAKESH]