the door as a precaution against musical speech of educated surprise. Through a gap be- Moors. tween cactus-trees the country appears in dim moonlight, outspread as far as eye can follow. One or two buildings gleam amid dark foliage. It is very quiet, and most gently Hassan plucks the strings of his instrument, standing with the moon at his back. Even his singing must be in an undertone. The first song is very sweet and sorrowful, like a Highland lament. It has ended and another just begun, when the sentinel gives the alarm, and immediately they have all vanished like the shadows of a dream, leaving me alone on my wall, painfully aware of its hardness. Sidi Mohammed is already seated and tea being brought into the room as I enter, feeling like a naughty child. That night the party seems more than usually animated. Sidi Hamdo has brought his little son, and the boy most charmingly recites passages from the Koran for my especial benefit, being dissatisfied with my pronunciation of Arabic. Now that I think of it, there is no reason at all why he should be anything else, any more than there is that he should become entirely absorbed in his self-imposed task. Any how, either native goodness of heart, or else the aptitude displayed by his pupil, brings him back next morning for another lesson, and I am beginning to realise something of the method concealed behind the exquisite There is no parallel to the place in Islamic society of the eldest son. Growing up in constant sympathetic communion with his father, such a child is without awkwardness, and his mind set already in mature wisdom. To-day in the Riff, the ripe experience of maturity is applied side by side with the bright intelligence of youth to innumerable problems set in the clash of alien civilisations, and I have no doubt of its effect on the future of the race. So day after day passes in pleasant intercourse and festivity. There are so many meals, and the cooking so excellent, that very early one has become conscious of superfluity, until the desire for compensating exercise grows into obsession. It would seem churlish to neglect the nightly banquet, yet every attempt to work it off afterwards is met with dismay. It is not customary for gentlefolk to exert themselves without reason; and at the moment a boar-hunt, which might provide the desired excuse, is not to be had. Moors who can travel day and night over mountains without fatigue can also lounge indoors consuming rich food for a similar period. In Europe men's forces are so sapped by the way of living that life must be taken in minute sips, without ever venturing to drain the bowl. Here in a simpler society they smile indulgently upon our ideas of exercise, and laugh incredulously at the assertion that we have eaten too much dinner. Each morning El Arbi proposes a walk in the demesne, and we are often the centre of an interested group during the evening stroll in the Kassba, with the rays of the setting sun stretched level across high brick walls, as we saunter to and fro in the shade. During the following days other visitors appear, their arrival announced by telephone from Ajdir, whence they travel by car, often remaining overnight. Sitting cross-legged on deep pile carpets round the teatray, the difficulties of the situation are freely exposed, many problems of the future, economic as well as military, coming up for consideration. What our friends have least reason to fear are the manœuvres of a declared opponent, in this country given over for a generation to European intrigue. They are aware of the dangers hidden behind commercial penetration, and deeply conscious that policy in peace may be no more than the continuance of war by subtler means. They make repeated inquiries about England and America, calling men of Anglo-Saxon blood "brothers" with that odd sense of racial affinity which appears natural and inexplicable at the same time. There is reference to international rivalries, and to the probability of intervention on the part of a neighbouring power, before talk turns to Spain, their natural link with civilisation, and to the Spanish Court, concerning which they display undisguised and, one might say, friendly curiosity. In particular, minute inquiries have to be answered concerning the King and Queen-"surely the Sultan Alfonso is also the friend of England. For is his wife not cousin to the great English Sultan, and most beautiful? " The visit to Snaada is prolonged for twelve days, and at the end of that time it is two rather bloated Inglizi who declare their fixed intention not to ride to Beniboufra, but rather to march with the guides. The final banquet has been prodigious, and neither dignity nor the desire to please can be allowed to interfere with an intention to depart like common men. We have our way in the end, though it entails much explanation on the part of El Arbi. On the eve of departure a letter Concerning the actual fighting there is little bitterness, except only as regards the employment of asphyxiating gas. One can understand this the more easily remembering opinion at home during the first attack on the Yser. Yet neither gas-shell nor bombard- has been entrusted to me, ment from the air has shaken the resolution of a people entirely unprovided with anti-gas appliances or effective medical aid. so delightful in its blending of West and East that it must be translated and set down : When A When the time for leavetaking arrives, it is quaintly ceremonious. Sidi Hamdo has actually been host, but he gives place to Sidi Mohammed, in whose guest-house we have been lodged, and he it is who utters the formal farewell. little way down the lane, in the shadow of an overhanging pomegranate, the powerful and wealthy Hamdo has taken his place cross-legged by the roadside, his white beard sweeping his lap; and beside him crouches his little son, Mohammed. Admiring villagers are gathered round, as in turn we grasp the old man's hand, promising a speedy return to Snaada. El Arbi insists on being our travelling companion for nearly three miles, with Seyyed and a friendly dog, the latter under the impression that this party, threading its way among devious tracks toward open country, may be after partridges. First come two guides and soldiers with slung rifles; then men leading mules, and AshSharif El Arbi with his departing friends, discoursing as he walks; finally, Seyyed, with more escort. During this last walk together astonishing details are revealed of a plan to visit Ingleterra by aeroplane, sea travel having in the past had most unfortunate effects on the Sherifian stomach. The plan was conceived long ago, but necessarily postponed until the business of El Makhzen became less pressing. So the time passes in agreeable talk until the road begins to ascend by easy acclivities to the foot of the hills. Whereupon, mopping his brow with a bandana handkerchief, this informed and informative link between East and West bids good-bye with numerous expressions of cordiality. At the instant of parting a group of countrymen has approached, and the worthy fellow stands waving his handkerchief, while deferential peasants press round to kiss the fringe of his jaleeb. With this picture in my memory of a sunlit valley, and a Sherif displaying a red handkerchief with white spots over the heads of his admirers, Snaada is left behind, and my face set steadfastly upward to the spot where the great jareeq cut for the Sultan's two motorcars has just become visible on a shoulder of the hill. The flooka is launched at Beniboufra late in the afternoon, while we drink tea with two soldiers attached to our persons for the journey. The crew are full of enthusiasm ; a rifle beside each man on the bench, ready to deal out of hand with any warship that may be encountered, the steersman hugging the cliffs rather from habit than timidity, and chanting wild snatches of song at intervals, to which the negro stroke responds in even wilder chorus. What with singing and rowing, substantial progress has already been made when evening arrives. After an oppressively hot day a break in the weather seems near. Clouds gather over the higher peaks, and the sun sinks furiously yellow, purple storm-cloud impinging on his sphere, so that he is already half-engulfed in trouble to come. The sailors, rowing sharply and in good time, cast apprehensive glances over their shoulders as the ship cuts her way through an ominous and restless sea. They respond eagerly to the shrill cries of the helmsman. Then a sudden wind gets up, and waves rise threateningly high just as the ramshackle little craft approaches a promontory. Already the seas are crested with livid seething foam, and are breaking right over fragments of rock around the headland. Straight among the turmoil she must go, where the backwash tosses her first out to sea and then mightily back again until she is almost dashed against the cliffs; and the crests of breakers, repulsed by unyielding rock, drench her with spray in their fall. The thong of a thwart-pin snaps, and she is an oar short until the damage can be made good with absurd bits of string and leather from a belt. She is continually shipping seas, and must be baled out with a leaky tin to avoid swamping. The squall is blowing straight on shore, and we are nearly on the rocks before she responds to her changed helm. She is drowned in flying spray and the course obscured; but the steersman handles her with unerring judgment, setting course between half-submerged ledges only visible in the trough of the waves. He appears wild with excitement, shouting to Allah for help, though his actions remain judicious and skilful. Passing the headland, the sun goes down upon vast seas rushing shoreward, winedark and foam-crested. Allah can no longer hear his helmsman's cries for the noise of water. But already she is abreast of the point, and in a few minutes will be running before the wind. The sail is up, and a moment later the rowers rest panting on their oars. The livid manes have gone from sea-horses, and the storm is over, the wind dying away, so that the motion of the ship, responding to the measured pull of oarsmen back at work, becomes again perceptible; the short click of oars, the splash of blades striking the water, and the are again clearly audible above 476 Abd-el-Krim's Stronghold in the Riff. [Oct. the swish of the waves. It together, furnish mutual heat, turned suddenly dark. so that inside the jaleeb a temLuminous phosphorescence perature can be maintained clings to the dipping blades, which renders the sleeper inand goes seething away in the dependent of other protection, ship's wake. The horizon is though the garment itself be melted in blue of the sky; saturated with water. cliffs shadowy; stars repeated in the water. She is steering into calm night. Very late the helmsman heads her suddenly among the rocks, and she is beached in white sand right under the cliffs, the crew leaping overboard with wooden rollers to pull her out of reach of the tide. everybody ploughs about in shingle, searching for a sheltered place, until at last all are settled; and little like human beings do these curious objects appear in the faint starlight, each man's legs drawn up for warmth within his jaleeb, head concealed in shapeless hood. We two Englishmen are so indistinguishable from the rest that one of our askar bodyguard, coming up late from the beach, is unable to recognise his charges, and inadvertently rouses two sailors in his efforts to identify us. The crouching position for sleep had not been easy, when one was first compelled to adopt it in the crowded guest-house of a Kayed; but already it is second nature, and were it not for the stiffness which follows its maintenance for any length of time, it would have become one's normal attitude. Knees tucked under chin, the limbs drawn Once upon a time this was how all men slept, with the knees pulled up. In this attitude most ancient skeletons are found in the barrows of our own country, and in very old tombs throughout the world. A slight change in the wind compels me to alter my situation at dead of night; and as wander shivering up and down, searching between motionless bundles for a place to leeward of the rocks, entire civilisations seem fallen away and vanished into air. Dawn is already in the sky when they wake us to a meal of freshly-fried sardines and bread and coffee. The sun finds the entire party gathered about a fire built with driftwood from the beach, and no sooner is breakfast over than the ship is again steering westward, propelled at intervals by oars, but more often able to find enough breeze to fill the sails and carry her lightly forward. A second night on the shingle, and very early in the morning she enters the bay of Wad Lau, to be pulled up on to a beach strewn with bales of fodder and smashed ammunition cases and dead mules. (To be continued.) |