Morocco | Page 5

Peace of the Prophet on all True Believers. I have brought food
from Mediunah," says the elderly advance-guard, by way of opening
the campaign.
"Allah is indeed merciful, O my Aunt," responds Salam with lofty
irrelevance. Then follows a prolonged pause, somewhat trying, I
apprehend, to Aunt, and struggling with a yawn Salam says at length, "I
will see what you would sell."
She beckons the others, and they lay their goods at our steward's feet.
Salam turns his head away meanwhile, and looks out across the

Atlantic as though anxious to assure himself about the state of
agriculture in Spain. At last he wheels about, and with a rapid glance
full of contempt surveys the village produce. He has a cheapening eye.
"How much?" he asks sternly.
[Illustration: IN TANGIER]
Item by item the old dame prices the goods. The little group of young
married women, with babies tied in a bundle behind them, or
half-naked children clinging to their loin-cloths, nods approval. But
Salam's face is a study. In place of contemptuous indifference there is
now rising anger, terrible to behold. His brows are knitted, his eyes
flame, his beard seems to bristle with rage. The tale of prices is hardly
told before, with a series of rapid movements, he has tied every bundle
up, and is thrusting the good things back into the hands of their owners.
His vocabulary is strained to its fullest extent; he stands up, and with
outspread hands denounces Mediunah and all its ways. The men of the
village are cowards; the women have no shame. Their parents were
outcasts. They have no fear of the Prophet who bade True Believers
deal fairly with the stranger within their gates. In a year at most,
perhaps sooner, "Our Master the Sultan" will assuredly be among these
people who shame Al Moghreb,[2] he will eat them up, dogs will make
merry among their graves, and their souls will go down to the pit. In
short, everything is too dear.
Only the little children are frightened by this outburst, which is no
more than a prelude to bargaining. The women extol and Salam decries
the goods on offer; both praise Allah. Salam assures them that the
country of the "Ingliz" would be ruined if its inhabitants had to pay the
prices they ask for such goods as they have to sell. He will see his
master starve by inches, he will urge him to return to Tangier and eat
there at a fair price, before he will agree to sacrifices hitherto unheard
of in Sunset Land. This bargaining proceeds for a quarter of an hour
without intermission, and by then the natives have brought their prices
down and Salam has brought his up. Finally the money is paid in
Spanish pesetas or Moorish quarters, and carefully examined by the
simple folk, who retire to their ancestral hills, once more praising Allah

who sends custom. Salam, his task accomplished, complains that the
villagers have robbed us shamefully, but a faint twinkle in his eye
suggests that he means less than he says.
Breakfast over, I seek a hillside cave where there is a double gift of
shade and a wonderful view, content to watch the pageantry of the
morning hours and dream of hard work. Only the goatherds and their
charges suggest that the district is inhabited, unless some vessel passing
on its way to or from the southern coast can be seen communicating
with the signal station round the bend of the rocks. There a kindly old
Scot lives, with his Spanish wife and little children, in comparative
isolation, from the beginning to the end of the year.
"I've almost forgotten my own tongue," he said to me one evening
when he came down to the camp to smoke the pipe of peace and tell of
the fur and feather that pass in winter time. It was on a day when a
great flight of wild geese had been seen winging its way to the
unknown South, and the procession had fired the sporting instinct in
one of us at least.
[Illustration: A STREET IN TANGIER]
Mid-day, or a little later, finds Salam in charge of a light meal, and, that
discussed, one may idle in the shade until the sun is well on the way to
the West. Then books and papers are laid aside. We set out for a tramp,
or saddle the horses and ride for an hour or so in the direction of the
mountain, an unexplored Riviera of bewildering and varied loveliness.
The way lies through an avenue of cork trees, past which the great hills
slope seaward, clothed with evergreen oak and heath, and a species of
sundew, with here and there yellow broom, gum cistus, and an
unfamiliar plant with blue