actual - DSpace@GIPE

TOWN AND TRAOK. 23
sight to behold on tbe one hand the women staggering up the
steep hill, occupied with the severest toil" while on the other one
saw the men-it being the last day of the festival-gayly caparisoned
and riding at full gallop over the plain, and amusing themselves
by f,'equently firing their guns in odd and awkward positions
-here styled "powder-play." We pitched our camp for the night
near the ambitious mud-walled gate of a rather larger village than
we usuaJly encountered. The headman came forth and begged us
to go inside the waJls, but we preferred the extra cleanliness of our
chosen site snd declined to move notwithstanding we were informed
that, being now south of the Seboo river, the country was ravaged
by a robber tribe named Beni Hassan, and that only a few nights
previously an Arab had been shot and his donkey .tolen exactly
wbere we p,'oposed to camp. As a sort of compromise we agreed
to corra.! our animals within the walls, sending one of our own
men to guard them, and took three men of the town to protect
our camp during the night. Native thieves are accustomed to
rush in Bnd seize an animal, or anything loose in a tent, and gaJlop
oj!, so it is almost impossible to' catch them. As something of a
protection against them all the villages are first surrounded with a
ditch, next by a mud wall covered with cactus, and next by a
great barrier of thorny bushes -which are collected and fastened in
bundles. About five o'olock a rain storm came on, which continued
all night.
We started on at nine o'clock in the morning, still traversing
the vast plain of the day before. The wind. blew strongly and it
was exceedingly cold; there were also frequent showers. The
villages seemed to occur oftener and to be larger, though of the
asme genera.! character. Some of them were very picturesque
with their barriers of red thorn, their brown straw huts and blue
camels' hair tents, their great domed rioks of yellow straw or hay,
their green cactus and agave hedges. We followed along the
oourse of a small river, a branch of the Seboo. In the middle of
the afternoon we approached a range of hills, beyond which are
situated the cities of both Mequinel and Fez, and it beginning to
rain hard we camped as nsual near one of the villages, from
which later on we took two goards. If anything happened to us,
the village to which these men belonged wonld be responsible to
the Sultan for our safety. During the night a horse was stolen
from some one near oor camp, but nothing occurred to oor party.
Always while we are either pitching or breaking camp there are