Jabala, where Arab admixtures so open, that one is irrepredominate. May it not hap- sistibly reminded of the Engpen that a few drops of Gothic lish country as it must have blood, so come by in early been under the Heptarchy. times, gave superior powers of resistance to these people, when the Arab invaders arrived in the eighth century, and the wide spaces of Northern Africa were overwhelmed in a single cavalry charge? May it not be from Northern ancestors that they derive a bearing and an outlook on life which strike an oddly familiar chord among so much that is Oriental and remote ? How else should it have come about that people so little inclined to adventure as the Berbers became stirred all at once to furious activity, seizing the rock since called Jibel Tarek, and pushing their conquests into the heart of France? There is a Northern tinge about the records of Granada, quite distinct from any other achievements of an Eastern race, and the subsequent career of the Barbary pirates might have inspired Icelandic saga. Be this as it may, the tribal system is immediately responsible for the conservation of so many fine distinctions in type. Intertribal marriages are rare, and the Riffi in particular are fortified by other mountaineers to west and south, themselves little liable to infiltration from outside. So it has come about that to-day they are an agricultural and pastoral people, with established homesteads; and in manners so candid, and in fashions of conduct But already pleasant valleys with their inhabitants have been left behind, and we are creeping up the face of the cliffs. All day the little band scrambles slowly upward under a blazing sun until, on the approach of nightfall, it is time to cast about for supper and lodging. The authority from El Makhzen which has so far smoothed the way having been impounded by Boccali, we are dependent on the instinctive hospitality of the inhabitants of the districts through which our road lies. In the billet of an artillery officer, where no doubt courteous entertainment would have been afforded to the friends of the Sultan, we are now to experience the more intimate hospitality reserved for ill-used guests. The warmth of such a welcome cannot be surpassed. a Our host is in command of mixed battery of Soixantequinze and Schneider guns, for the moment posted on the hill above, but under orders to move forward to high ground overlooking Zinatz as soon as the flooded state of the wads will permit. He is apparently finding it dull to kick his heels so long in a back area while others are playing the game. But so far as his visitors are concerned, life in his billet is full of excitement. For has he not a hundred rounds of live shells stored in the apart ment where we are sitting to gether, and the most hairraising way of tossing them about to make room for extra guests? No Riffi loses sight for an instant of the main purpose of war, as defined in the textbooks, which is the destruction of the enemy. Nor does he conceive his function in any narrow specialist sense. Here is the story of a gold chronometer with which our host measures the passage of time while tea is brewing, though unable to decipher the hours themselves. It happened one afternoon before the fall of Sheshuan, when there had been no visible target all day for his guns. Weary of the monotony of such an existence, the battery had been left in charge of a few men, while he led the remainder of his personnel into the outskirts of the town, in search of any adventure that might offer. Very soon a good opening presented itself in the person of a boy, with a tale of Spagnola drinking nightly in his father's house. It having been decided in general consultation that the occasion called for silence, each man was told to deposit the two hand grenades he carried in a large basket, before following the boy into the streets. On arrival, the band was rapidly disposed about the interior of the paternal establishment, in the manner of the forty thieves. All would have gone well had the boy not been entrusted with the basket, or even had he not been interested in the mechanism of hand-grenades. But, as it happened, he was particularly concerned with the construction of the detonator, with the result that he blew himself up with the bomb he was examining, just as a troop of Spanish soldiers had settled down in the interior of el gizar's house. The accident actually took place in the street entrance, but the noise was too much for the sangfroid of the raiders, who popped up here and there in the traditional fashion of the forty thieves, perhaps actually from behind jars of oil. It therefore became necessary that the work should be done at once with knives. Our artilleryman had already cast an eye on the gold watch rather ostentatiously displayed by a member of the party. But in the confusion entailed by the boy's unfortunate conduct, he was unable to discover the pocket in which its owner had replaced it after reading the time. In view of what had occurred, it would not have been discreet to linger in this house in the middle of the town, rifling the pockets of a dead Spaniard; so there was nothing for it but to carry the body off on his shoulders along the narrow ways, now crowded with agitated spectators. As luck would have it a Spanish patrol had appeared at the wrong moment, drawn by the report of the grenade, and here was the unfortunate 66 "But suppose that evening had been chosen for a raid by the other side, what about the battery?" handing round the pipe of kieff, or singing songs in a minor key, to the accompaniment of a sort of lute. He breaks off sugar from a glistening cone, and prepares tea with the intense care one is accustomed to see devoted to a cocktail; three times varying the proportion of his ingredients before the proper balance has been attained; then, with the second hand of his chronometer, he measures the time for brewing. When the company sips, conversation ceases. It is altogether a pleasant interlude, and one has almost lost the vague sense of trouble ahead There were five lying out when it comes to an end next in the snipers' posts." morning, and an early start is made on the flattest of feet; for our hospitable friends have no mules that can be spared, the battery being about to move off in an opposite direction. The jareeq will be a long one, so the band must be moving at once and march quickly, in order to find shelter before nightfall. "We always know beforehand when there will be a raid. We were weary doing nothing. We came away quickly. was not long.' It He is fingering his chronometer affectionately, winding it up or moving the hands, raising the glass front to blow imaginary dust from the face, though he has not yet learned how to tell the time with any degree of accuracy. Yet this gunner appears to know his job. Tactics, as he expounds them, strike one as admirable for their special purposes, and professional enthusiasm fills one or two yawning gaps in his training. He turns out to be a charming companion in every way, genially The way is hard to follow even in full daylight, and there is frequent argument between the askar and various guides who accompany the expedition. What it will be should night find us still on the mountain one does not try to imagine. Every little ravine conceals a furious tearing wad. The party has already passed through a dozen such torrents ten and twelve yards wide, into which men rush clinging together, immersed to the waist and drenched in spray, endeavour ing to maintain a foothold on authorities, and one hears loose slippery stones, occasionally making a false step, to vanish altogether for an instant beneath the rushing water. However, the final ridge has been crested, and in front lies a vast and fertile valley, while on the opposite slope the homestead where the night is to be passed can be distinctly made out through its grove of fruittrees. It is not long past noon, and the destination appearing no more than three miles away, we are glad to throw ourselves down on the rocks, munching green figs from a bag that Abu Sallum carries on his belt. A guide has found a convenient cascade, with pool below pool of crystal water. Every one is drinking and eating figs, or effecting small readjustments in his equipment. My shoes have become a cause for serious anxiety. I must continually bind them together with strips of canvas, for by this time only the uppers remain. I have tried going barefooted, as guides do, but my soles are not sufficiently inured to stones and brambles. The valley at our feet presents a spectacle of unusual fertility, with numerous groves of trees, and cattle grazing in its low-lying pastures; while what appears even from these heights to be a great river twists and turns among mounds studded with trees. It is through this river we must reach our destination. The whereabouts of the ford is apparently a moot point among many eloquent arguments put forward, as one lies contentedly dozing in the sun. The company rests and argues; but Abu Sallum, seemingly tireless, in spite of his deformity, is chasing lambs about the hillside from pure excess of spirits. At last Mohammed gives the signal to move, and it is down into a valley again, clinging to the face of a precipice. The vexed question of the best way is still undecided. Having scrambled down-stream for a distance of two miles or more, we are approaching easier declivities, when a countryman with a plough is encountered, who assures us that the only possible ford lies as far again above the point from which the descent began. It is late afternoon when a band of footsore travellers is again taking its ease, but this time by the side of roaring water, at a spot where many declare a crossing can be effected. The crossing proves a desper ate adventure, undertaken in groups of three or four with poles to feel the way, and clothing in a bundle on top of each man's head. Abu Sallum in particular presents a gallant spectacle, as he is dragged and lifted through the water by two tall guides, themselves by no means sure of a foothold. They are immersed to the armpits in the powerful current, and the spectacle of a small naked Sharif, always smiling hopefully as his head bobs up and down in mid-stream, while 1 friendly hands sustain him on each side, is as surprising as it is diverting. Next we have to work downriver again, crossing various tributaries, until the ascent to the high-perched homestead at last begins. Night is falling by the time it has been attained, so far as oneself is concerned, on hands and knees. The rain has just recommenced, and, of course, we are not expected. Only after tedious delay does an ancient hag appear with a candle sheltered in a lanthorn, a vast distance away, and two children following in her wake. The three approach with marked diffidence, and a quantity of long-range talk takes place before our plight has been explained to the satisfaction of the old dame. Still she is troubled with doubts, and her complaining continues at intervals, though the two children have been told to unbolt the door of the guesthouse. One is grateful for any shelter. The two of them presently return with a fleainfested carpet, on which an uncomfortable night has to be spent, while rain pours through the roof. It seems the shadow of Boccali is pursuing his victims across the mountain, people here being evidently aware of every circumstance, and ready to take their tone from the chieftain. All next morning rain descends in sheets, dripping from the roof of the guestroom upon the four of us, crouched gloomily together, without even a charcoal brazier ; people of little weight in the world, a Riffi soldier and two dogs of Nazerani; while I suspect the only shred of consequence remaining to the party consists in its chance association with a down-at-heel Sharif. It is meekly grateful we are when this noble personage, by judicious insistence on his rank, procures our scanty breakfast. He appears Mohammed the Askari has for long expressed himself only in forceful grunts. Each member of the party is lost in his own gloomy meditation, resigned for ever to a life of contempt in this prison-house, encompassed with mountain and water, when, to the general astonishment, a most excellent omelette arrives for lunch, and the Kayed in person follows close on the dish. He is full of apologies for the scanty welcome that has been accorded. By all means we shall have another carpet. to be a person of exceptional amiability, and in the agreeable warmth of the two braziers that come in with the tea, one is beginning to look back benignly upon past privations, with a sense of wellbeing all the more intense by contrast. He has gone, and we still sit sipping tea, when a sudden illumination seems to flash over the inscrutable background of Mohammed's mind. He begins to talk of the joy there is in fighting, expressing his emotion in cheerful expletive, repeating two or three times over the curiously fierce tale |