houses have no windows fronting the road--decency forbids, and though
there might have been ample light within, the bare walls helped to darken
the pathway, and it was wise to walk warily lest one should tumble over
some beggar asleep on the ground.

[Illustration: SUNSET OFF THE COAST]

On nights like these and through streets not greatly different, Harun
al Raschid fared abroad in Baghdad and lighted upon the wonderful folk who
live for all time in the pages of the _Arabian Nights_. Doubtless I passed
some twentieth-century descendants of the fisher-folk, the Calendars, the
slaves, and the merchants who move in their wonderful pageantry along the
glittering road of the "Thousand Nights and a Night,"--the type is
marvellously unchanging in Al Moghreb; but, alas, they spoke, if at all,
to deaf ears, and Salam was ever more anxious to see me safely home than
to set out in search of adventure. By day I knew that Djedida had little
of the charm associated even in this year of grace with the famous city on
the Tigris, but, all over the world that proclaims the inspiration of
Mohammed, the old times come back by night, and then "a thousand years are
but as yesterday."

Happily we were right below the area of rebellion. In the north, round Fez
and Taza, there was severe fighting, spreading thence to the Riff country.
Here, people did no more than curse the Pretender in public or the Sultan
in private, according to the state of their personal feelings.
Communication with the south, said the Maalem, was uninterrupted; only in
the north were the sons of the Illegitimate, the rebels against Allah,
troubling Our Lord the Sultan. From Djedida down to the Atlas the tribes
were peaceful, and would remain at rest unless Our Master should attempt
to collect his taxes, in which case, without doubt, there would be