the flat
wall, where the heads of turbulent tribesmen hang occasionally, sent over
from some neighbouring raid by the Sultan's orders, and first salted by
the Jews in the city, _nolens volens_. The cobbles were slippery under
the gate. The huge, heavy wooden doors, studded with iron bolts, are
barred and locked every night half an hour after sunset. Inside, looking
back, just at the parting of two streets, a great white wall faced us,
topped with green tiles, grass-grown; below, a horse-shoe arch, somewhat
in relief, belted with coloured tiles, defaced by age, contained a long
solid stone trough, into which two spouts of water gushed--never dry in
this city of springs. Mules and donkeys and country-folk all stop and
drink, and the front of the trough is carved.

Bab-el-Aukla is the finest gate in the city.

Go where you will in Tetuan, at every turn water bubbles into time-worn
and artistically moulded troughs and basins, under quaint arches, tiled
in blue and brown and white. In the narrow winding street-ways, between
the houses, half dark, still the bubbling of water is heard, and the
shining wet trough seen.

As we left the city and walked down the sandy road which leads to the
sea, our tents lay a quarter of a mile off, two white spots, pitched on
grass just off the road, the mules picketed by them.

We had a somewhat light meal at six o'clock, Mohammed's chicken turning
out like hammered leather. He was no cook.

[Illustration: OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN.

[_To face p. 60._]

An Arabic proverb says, "What is past is gone, and the future is distant;
and to thee is the hour in which thou art." It was obviously never
intended by the Creator that mankind should make plans. Morocco may have
its drawbacks, but it is at least one of those few and blessed spots
where it is waste of time to plan: life is a matter of to-day, and

To-morrow?--Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Seven Thousand Years.

Thus some time that evening, when, after coping unsuccessfully with
the chicken, it struck R. and myself that Tetuan had attractions over and
above the head of Tangier, we settled then and there to stay on at Tetuan
as long as we liked the place, though the weather looked very much like
rain, not at all like camping out, and we had no clothes with us to speak
of.

Overcoming or ignoring these difficulties, we finally decided to pay off
our three men, send them back by themselves to Tangier with the t