sausage, they must be made of pig-skin, since they were
the work of pig-eating unbelievers. But they liked the
idea of air for fodder, especially as a famine was threatened,
and they were urgent in their requests for a ride,
which no assurance of danger could stay.
“ Let me try, Consul; there’s not a horse in the province
that I can’t ride; I’ll break her in.”
A t one halting-place our only way out of the difficulty
was to declare that none should on any account
be permitted to try but the sedate and portly governor
whose guests we were, who would sooner have stood
on his head. Our only real trouble was when we
had to wheel our machines— which occurred so often
that my companion thought we ought to call it a walking
tour with bicycle variations,— when the crowd was
apt to grow unpleasantly large and close.
Beneath While standing we could keep their curious
Contempt. & 1 i
fingers at bay, but walking we could not.
One day, at lunch beneath a hedge of cactus, all the
wonder and amazement of the circle around us was
dispelled by a travelled Moor, who exclaimed scornfully:
“ BahI These are nothing: what do you look at them
for? Why, these things have only two wheels, and in
Algeria I have seen things with four I "
Their wonder is to be explained, since in Morocco
there are practically no wheeled vehicles; of one thing,
however, all had heard, that the “ Romans ” have a wonderful
contrivance by which they get about with incredible
speed, known in Morocco as the “ land steamer,” which
they naturally took our innocent “ cykes ” to be.
“ A las 1 Alas 1 Woe is me I The Christians have taken
our country at last; why, here’s a railway train 1 Woe
to me I Woe to me 1 ” ?
Those who felt less desponding, although no less
* See illustration by Dr. Rudduck on p. 396 of The Moorish Empire.
certain, yelled at us lustily: “ Give them fire 1 Give them
firel ” and from the remarks overheard I found that my
red-cloth-covered water-can was usually taken for the
furnace. None could conceive how moving the pedals
could make them go.
A s for accommodation at night, the less said the better.
The first night we made for a governor’s residence,
whither we had been preceded by a mounted wayside
messenger from the governor of Mazagan, Quarters.
whence we started, an old friend who had not
only given us a dinner, but had come out to see us off.
On arrival we were shown into the bare and comfortless
guest room. Already a Jewish trader was installed there
with his baggage, and after a while came tea and sugar
and candles for all. Then, after a visit from the governor,
supper, a big dish of stew with abundant bread. After
this we lay down and slept, when the fleas would permit
us, even the case-hardened Jew complaining next day
that they had kept him awake, so it may be guessed
how we suffered. Next day the old governor, fat, grey,
and nearly blind, wrapped in his blanket and white-
hooded cloak, came round to be doctored while we
doctored a punctured tyre— our first and last, since the
stones on these tracks being worn and unbroken, the
tyres do not suffer in this way anything like so much
as in England.
But from the heat and jolting they suffered more than
ever tyres were meant to stand. On both our machines
the rear tubes gave way at the joints, but Behaviour
when replaced by tropical “ Dunlops, caused us 0j- Byres.
no more trouble, although in one case a 30 in.
tube had to do for a 28 in. wheel. Towards noon the
heat of the ground and the sun was so great that the
air in the tubes extended and puffed them until we
could let off a good rush, and yet leave them tight.