d that he carried his gun in proper fashion, and that his duty was
well done. And really he may have been right, for upon a day, when a hint
of possible danger threatened, I learned to my amusement and relief that
the valiant man carried no ammunition of any sort, and that the barrel of
his gun was stuffed full of red calico.

Our inland tramp over, he took one day's rest at Mogador, then gathered
the well-earned store of dollars into his belt and started off to follow
the coast road back to Djedida. Perhaps by now the Basha has had his
dollars, or the Sultan has summoned him to help fight Bu Hamara. In any
case I like to think that his few weeks with us will rank among the
pleasant times of his life, for he proved a patient, enduring man, and
though silent, a not unedifying companion.

Among the strange stories I heard in Djedida while preparing for the
journey was one relating to the then War Minister, Kaid Mahedi el Menebhi,
some-time envoy to the Court of St. James's. In his early days Menebhi,
though a member of the great Atlas Kabyle of that name, had been a poor
lad running about Djedida's streets, ready and willing to earn a handful
of _floos_[8] by hard work of any description. Then he set up in business
as a mender of old shoes and became notorious, not because of his skill as
a cobbler, but on account of his quick wit and clever ideas. In all
Mohammedan countries a Believer may rise without any handicap on account
of lowly origin, and so it fell out that the late Grand Wazeer, Ba Ahmad,
during a visit to Djedida heard of the young cobbler's gifts, and
straightway gave him a place in his household. Thereafter promotion was
rapid and easy for Menebhi, and the lad who had loafed about the streets
with the outcasts of the city became, under the Sultan, the first man in
Morocco. "To-day," concluded my informant, "he has palaces and slaves and
a great hareem, he is a Chief Wazeer and head of the Sultan's forces, but
he still owes a merchant in Djedida some few dollars on account of leather
he had bought and forgot to pay for when Ba Ahmad took him to
Marrakesh."[9]

[Illustration: A BLACKSMITH'S SHOP]

In the R'hamna country, on the way to the southern capital, we pitched our
tents one night in a Government n'zala, or guarded camping-ground, one of
many that are spread about the country for the safety of travellers. The
price of corn, eggs, and chickens was amazingly high, and the Maalem
explained that the n'zal