bare and dry. Skeletons of
camels, mules, and donkeys told their story of past sufferings, and the
water supply was as scanty as the herbage upon which the R'hamna flocks
fare so poorly. In place of prosperous douars, set in orchards amid rich
arable land, there were Government n'zalas at long intervals in the waste,
with wattled huts, and lean, hungry tribesmen, whose poverty was as plain
to see as their ribs. Neither Basha nor Kaid could well grow fat now in
such a place, and yet there was a time when R'hamna was a thriving
province after its kind. But it had a warlike people and fierce, to whom
the temptation of plundering the caravans that made their way to the
Southern capital was irresistible. So the Court Elevated by Allah, taking
advantage of a brief interval of peace, turned its forces loose against
R'hamna early in the last decade of the nineteenth century. From end to
end of its plains the powder "spoke," and the burning douars lighted the
roads that their owners had plundered so often. Neither old nor young were
spared, and great basketsful of human heads were sent to Red Marrakesh, to
be spiked upon the wall by the J'maa Effina. When the desolation was
complete from end to end of the province, the Shareefian troops were
withdrawn, the few remaining folk of R'hamna were sent north and south to
other provinces, the n'zalas were established in place of the forgotten
douars, and the Elevated Court knew that there would be no more
complaints. That was Mulai el Hassan's method of ruling--may Allah have
pardoned him--and his grand wazeer's after him. It is perhaps the only
method that is truly understood by the people in Morocco. R'hamna reminded
me of the wildest and bleakest parts of Palestine, and when the Maalem
said solemnly it was tenanted by djinoon since the insurrection, I felt he
must certainly be right.

One evening we met an interesting procession. An old farmer was making his
way from the jurisdiction of the local kaid. His "house" consisted of two
wives and three children. A camel, whose sneering contempt for mankind
was very noticeable, shuffled cumbrously beneath a very heavy load of
mattresses, looms, rugs, copper kettles, sacks of corn, and other
impedimenta. The wives, veiled to the eyes, rode on mules, each carrying a
young child; the third child, a boy, walked by his father's side. The
barley harvest had not been good in their part of the country, so after
selling what he could, the old man ha