PICTURE CITY

[Illustration: A MOORISH GIRL]

CHAPTER XII

TO THE GATE OF THE PICTURE CITY

Is it Pan's breath, fierce in the tremulous maiden-hair,
That bids fear creep as a snake through the woodlands, felt
In the leaves that it stirs not yet, in the mute bright air,
In the stress of the sun?

_A Nympholept._

By the time the little camp was astir and the charcoal fires had done
their duty to eggs, coffee, and porridge, Pepe Ratto, accompanied by two
of his Berber trackers, rode into the valley, and dismounted on the level
ground where our tent was pitched. At first sight the sportsman stood
revealed in our welcome visitor. The man whose name will be handed down to
future generations in the annals of Morocco's sport would attract
attention anywhere. Tall, straight, sunburnt, grizzled, with keen grey
eyes and an alert expression, suggesting the easy and instantaneous change
from thought to action, Pepe Ratto is in every inch of him a sportsman.
Knowing South Morocco as few Europeans know it, and having an acquaintance
with the forest that is scarcely exceeded by either Moor or Berber, he
gives as much of his life as he can spare to the pursuit of the boar, and
he had ridden out with his hunters this morning from his forest home, the
Palm Tree House, to meet us before we left the Argans behind, so that we
might turn awhile on the track of a "solitaire" tusker.

So the mules were left to enjoy an unexpected rest while their owners
enjoyed an uninterrupted breakfast, and the kaid was given ample time in
which to groom his horse and prepare it and himself for sufficiently
imposing entrance into the Picture City[53] that evening. Salam was
instructed to pack tents and boxes at his leisure, before he took one of
my sporting guns and went to pursue fur and feather in parts of the forest
immediately adjacent to the camp. A straight shot and a keen sportsman, I
knew that Salam would not bother about the hares that might cross his
path, or birds that rose in sudden flight away from it. His is the Moorish
method of shooting, and he is wont to stalk his quarry and fire before it
rises. I protested once that this procedure was unsportsmanlike.

"Yes, sir," he replied simply. "If I wait for bird to fly may be I miss
him, an' waste cartridge."

[Illustration: A NARROW STREET IN MOGADOR]

This argument was, of course, unanswerable. He would follow birds slowly
and deliberately, taking