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 had packed his goods on to the camel's back and was flying from the tax-gatherer. To be sure, he might meet robbers on the way to the province of M'touga, which was his destination, but they would do no more than the kaid of his own district; they might even do less. He had been many days upon the road, and was quaintly hopeful. I could not help thinking of prosperous men one meets at home, who declare, in the intervals of a costly dinner, that the Income Tax is an imposition that justifies the strongest protest, even to the point of repudiating the Government that puts it up by twopence in the pound. Had anybody been able to assure this old wanderer that his kaid or khalifa would be content with half the produce of his land, how cheerfully would he have returned to his native douar, how readily he would have--devised plans to avoid payment. A little later the track would be trodden by other families, moving, like the true Bedouins, in search of fresh pasture. It is the habit of the country to leave land to lie fallow when it has yielded a few crops.
There were days when the mirage did for the plain the work that man had neglected. It set great cities on the waste land as though for our sole benefit. I saw walls and battlements, stately mosques, cool gardens, and rivers where caravans of camels halted for rest and water. Several times we were deceived and hurried on, only to find that the wonder city, like the _ignis fatuus_ of our own marshlands, receded as we approached and finally melted away altogether. Then the Maalem, after taking refuge with Allah from Satan the Stoned, who set false cities before the eyes of tired travellers, would revile the mules and horses for needing a mirage to urge them on the way; he would insult the fair fame of their mothers and swear that their sires were such beasts as no Believer would bestride. It is a fact that when the Maalem lashed our animals with his tongue they made haste to improve their pace, if only for a few minutes, and Salam, listening with an expression of some concern at the sad family history of the beasts--he had a stinging tongue for oaths himself--assured me that their sense of shame hurried them on. Certainly no sense of shame, or duty, or even compassion, ever moved the Maalem. By night he would repair to the kitchen tent and smoke kief or eat haschisch, but the troubles of preparing beds and supper did not worry him.