[Illustration: A TRAVELLER ON THE PLAINS]

First and foremost stands out a khalifa, lieutenant of a great country
kaid, met midmost Dukala, in a place of level barley fields new cut with
the _media luna_. Brilliant poppies and irises stained the meadows on all
sides, and orchards whose cactus hedges, planted for defence, were now
aflame with blood-red flowers, became a girdle of beauty as well as
strength. The khalifa rode a swiftly-ambling mule, a beast of price, his
yellow slippers were ostentatiously new, and his ample girth proclaimed
the wealthy man in a land where all the poor are thin. "Peace," was his
salutation to M'Barak, who led the way, and when he reached us he again
invoked the Peace of Allah upon Our Lord Mohammed and the Faithful of
the Prophet's House, thereby and with malice aforethought excluding the
infidel. Like others of his class who passed us he was but ill-pleased to
see the stranger in the land; unlike the rest he did not conceal his
convictions. Behind him came three black slaves, sleek, armed, proud in
the pride of their lord, and with this simple retinue the khalifa was on
his way to tithe the newly-harvested produce of the farmers who lived in
that district. Dangerous work, I thought, to venture thus within the
circle of the native douars and claim the lion's share of the hard-won
produce of the husbandmen. He and his little company would be outnumbered
in the proportion of thirty or forty to one, they had no military
following, and yet went boldly forth to rob on the kaid's behalf. I
remembered how, beyond Tangier, the men of the hills round Anjera had
risen against an unpopular khalifa, had tortured him in atrocious fashion,
and left him blind and hideously maimed, to be a warning to all tyrants.
Doubtless our prosperous fellow-traveller knew all about it, doubtless he
realised that the Sultan's authority was only nominal, but he knew that
his immediate master, the Basha, still held his people in an iron grip
while, above and beyond all else, he knew by the living faith that