In all the actions that take place consequent upon these cattle raids, but few are slain, for though both the Arabs and the Berbers all have guns, their style of fighting is a survival from the time they carried bows. They rarely charge, and never engage hand-to-hand, but gallop to and fro and fire their guns with both eyes shut, or, turning on their horses, fire over the tail; so few are killed, except the prisoners, who generally are butchered in cold blood, if they are not of such account as to be worth a ransom. A merry, pleasant life enough for able-bodied men, and not unhealthy, and one that makes them singularly bad subjects for missionary work. So stony is the ground in the vineyard of the tribes, that up to now I never heard of any missionary so bold or foolish as to attempt to dig. A day will come, no doubt, when their hearts will prove more malleable; but I fear before that time their bodies will have to be much wrought upon by rifles, revolvers, and the other civilising agents which commonly precede the introduction of our faith.
Leaving Amsmiz, the road to Sus leads over foothills all of red argillaceous earth and fissured deeply here and there by winter rains. Now and then strange effects of coloured earth, blue, yellow, green, and mauve, diversify the scene. The road leads through a straggling oak wood and emerges at a village, where, in the middle, the county council is assembled in a thatched mosque. Mosques serve for council chambers, meeting places, and in villages for travellers to sleep in, for throughout Morocco the sanctuary is never closed, and thus the people feel their God is always there, and not laid up in lavender for six days in the week.
The Maalem who had accompanied us as guide, and as a guarantee that we were creditable folk—for in the wilder districts of Morocco travellers take a man in every district to convoy them to the next—had reached his limit, and, laying down his gun, entered the mosque to get another man. What he said there I do not know; if he had doubts perhaps he uttered them, at any rate, after a most unseasonable wait, which kept us all on pins and needles, he emerged, bringing a most ill-favoured tribesman, who came up to me and, kissing my clothes, asked for my blessing. I gave it him as well as I was able, but fancied he was not satisfied, as he retired muttering in Shillah, of which I did not understand a word. The Maalem bade us good-bye, and asked for cartridges, which, of course, we gave, but how they benefited him is a moot point, for they were intended for a small-sized Winchester; he drew his charge and crammed the four or five cartridges we gave him into his old Tower gun, but as I did not pass by Amsmiz on my return, I have no information how he fared when he touched off the piece.