Morocco | Page 7

drawn, a strange bird with a harsh yet melancholy note, that reminds me of the night-jar of the fen lands in our own country. The hills make a semicircle round the camp, and the visitor seems to arrive at the corner nearest Spartel about one o'clock in the morning. It cries persistently awhile, and then flies to the middle of the semicircle, just at the back of the tents, where the note is very weird and distinct. Finally it goes to the other horn of the crescent and resumes the call--this time, happily, a much more subdued affair. What is it? Why does it come to complain to the silence night after night? One of the men says it is a djin, and wants to go back to Tangier, but Salam, whose loyalty outweighs his fears, declares that even though it be indeed a devil and eager to devour us, it cannot come within the charmed range of my revolver. Hence its regret, expressed so unpleasantly. I have had to confess to Salam that I have no proof that he is wrong.
Now and again in the afternoon the tribesmen call to one another from the hill tops. They possess an extraordinary power of carrying their voices over a space that no European could span. I wonder whether the real secret of the powers ascribed to the half-civilised tribes of Africa has its origin in this gift. Certain it is that news passes from village to village across the hills, and that no courier can keep pace with it. In this way rumours of great events travel from one end of the Dark Continent to the other, and if the tales told me of the passage of news from South to North Africa during the recent war were not so extravagant as they seem at first hearing, I would set them down here, well assured that they would startle if they could not convince. In the south of Morocco, during the latter days of my journey, men spoke with quiet conviction of the doings of Sultan and Pretender in the North, just as though Morocco possessed a train or telegraph service, or a native newspaper. It does not seem unreasonable that, while the deserts and great rolling plains have extended men's vision to a point quite outside the comprehension of Europe, other senses may be at least equally stimulated by a life we Europeans shall: never know intimately. Perhaps the fear of believing too readily makes us unduly sceptical, and inclined to forget that our philosophy cannot compass one of the many mysteries that lie at our door.
If any proof were required that Morocco in all its internal disputes is strictly tribal, our safe residence here would supply one. On the other side of Tangier, over in the direction of Tetuan, the tribes are out and the roads are impassable. Europeans are forbidden to ride by way of Angera to Tetuan. Even a Minister, the representative of a great European Power, was warned by old Hadj Mohammed Torres, the resident Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that the Moorish Administration would not hold itself responsible for his safety if he persisted in his intention to go hunting among the hills. And here we remain unmolested day after day, while the headmen of the Mediunah tribe discuss with perfect tranquillity the future of the Pretender's rebellion, or allude cheerfully to the time when, the Jehad (Holy War) being proclaimed, the Moslems will be permitted to cut the throats of all the Unbelievers who trouble the Moghreb. In the fatalism of our neighbours lies our safety. If Allah so wills, never a Nazarene will escape the more painful road to eternal fire; if it is written otherwise, Nazarene torment will be posthumous. They do not know, nor, in times when the land is preparing for early harvest, do they greatly care, what or when the end may be. Your wise Moor waits to gather in his corn and see it safely hoarded in the clay-lined and covered pits called mat'moras. That work over, he is ready and willing, nay, he is even anxious, to fight, and if no cause of quarrel is to be found he will make one.
[Illustration: HEAD OF A BOY FROM MEDIUNA]
Every year or two a party of travellers settles on this plateau, says the headman of Mediunah. From him I hear of a fellow writer from England who was camped here six years ago.[5] Travellers stay sometimes for three or four days, sometimes for as many weeks, and he has been told by men who have come many miles from distant markets, that the Nazarenes are to be found here and there throughout the Moroccan highlands towards the close of the season of the winter rains. Clearly their own land is