in
from the interior for the Monday market. They had tramped from the
villages of the Zair and the Beni Hassan tribes, bringing ripe barley for
sale, though the spring months had not yet passed. From places near at
hand the husbandmen had brought all the vegetables that flourish after the
March rains,--peas and beans and lettuces; pumpkins, carrots and turnips,
and the tender leaves of the date-palm. The first fruits of the year and
the dried roses of a forgotten season were sold by weight, and charcoal
was set in tiny piles at prices within the reach of the poorest customers.

Wealthy merchants had brought their horses within the shadow of the
sok's[6] high walls and loosened the many-clothed saddles. Slaves walked
behind their masters or trafficked on their behalf. The snake-charmer, the
story-teller, the beggar, the water-carrier, the incense seller, whose
task in life is to fumigate True Believers, all who go to make the typical
Moorish crowd, were to be seen indolently plying their trade. But
inquiries for mules, horses, and servants for the inland journey met with
no ready response. Dar el Baida, I was assured, had nothing to offer;
Djedida, lower down along the coast, might serve, or Saffi, if Allah
should send weather of a sort that would permit the boat to land.

[Illustration: A PATRIARCH]

As it happened, Djedida was the steamer's next port of call, so we made
haste to return to her hospitable decks. I carried with me a vivid
impression of Dar el Baida, of the market-place with its varied goods, and
yet more varied people, the white Arabs, the darker Berbers, the black
slaves from the Soudan and the Draa. Noticeable in the market were the
sweet stores, where every man sat behind his goods armed with a feather
brush, and waged ceaseless war with the flies, while a corner of his eye
was kept for small boys, who were well nigh as dangerous. I remember the
gardens, one particularly well. It belongs to the French Consul, and has
bananas growing on the trees that face the road; from beyond the hedge one
caught delightful glimpses of colour and faint breaths of exquisite
perfume.

I remember, too, the covered shed containing the mill that grinds the
flour for the town, and the curious little bakehouse to which Dar el Baida
takes its flat loaves, giving the master of the establishment one loaf in
ten by way of payment. I recall the sale of horses, at which a fine raking
mare with her foal at foot fetched fifty-fo