He will see his master starve by
inches, he will urge him to return to Tangier and eat there at a fair
price, before he will agree to sacrifices hitherto unheard of in Sunset
Land. This bargaining proceeds for a quarter of an hour without
intermission, and by then the natives have brought their prices down and
Salam has brought his up. Finally the money is paid in Spanish pesetas or
Moorish quarters, and carefully examined by the simple folk, who retire to
their ancestral hills, once more praising Allah who sends custom. Salam,
his task accomplished, complains that the villagers have robbed us
shamefully, but a faint twinkle in his eye suggests that he means less
than he says.
Breakfast over, I seek a hillside cave where there is a double gift of
shade and a wonderful view, content to watch the pageantry of the morning
hours and dream of hard work. Only the goatherds and their charges suggest
that the district is inhabited, unless some vessel passing on its way to
or from the southern coast can be seen communicating with the signal
station round the bend of the rocks. There a kindly old Scot lives, with
his Spanish wife and little children, in comparative isolation, from the
beginning to the end of the year.
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