As though he were a reincarnation of
Daphnis or Menalcas, one of the brown-skinned boys leans over a little
promontory and plays a tuneless ghaitah, while his companion, a younger
lad, gives his eyes to the flock and his ears to the music. The last rains
of this favoured land's brief winter have passed; beyond the plateau the
sun has called flowers to life in every nook and cranny. Soon the light
will grow too strong and blinding, the flowers will fade beneath it, the
shepherds will seek the shade, but in these glad March days there is no
suggestion of the intolerable heat to come.
[Illustration: THE COURT-YARD OF THE LIGHTHOUSE, CAPE SPARTEL]
On the plot of level ground that Nature herself has set in position for a
camp, the tents are pitched. Two hold the impedimenta of travel; in the
third Salam and his assistant work in leisurely fashion, as befits the
time and place. Tangier lies no more than twelve miles away, over a
road that must be deemed uncommonly good for Morocco, but I have chosen to
live in camp for a week or two in this remote place, in preparation for a
journey to the southern country. At first the tents were the cynosure of
native eyes.
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