"I've almost forgotten my own tongue," he said to me one evening when he
came down to the camp to smoke the pipe of peace and tell of the fur and
feather that pass in winter time. It was on a day when a great flight of
wild geese had been seen winging its way to the unknown South, and the
procession had fired the sporting instinct in one of us at least.
[Illustration: A STREET IN TANGIER]
Mid-day, or a little later, finds Salam in charge of a light meal, and,
that discussed, one may idle in the shade until the sun is well on the way
to the West. Then books and papers are laid aside. We set out for a tramp,
or saddle the horses and ride for an hour or so in the direction of the
mountain, an unexplored Riviera of bewildering and varied loveliness. The
way lies through an avenue of cork trees, past which the great hills slope
seaward, clothed with evergreen oak and heath, and a species of sundew,
with here and there yellow broom, gum cistus, and an unfamiliar plant with
blue flowers. Trees and shrubs fight for light and air, the fittest
survive and thrive, sheltering little birds from the keen-eyed, quivering
hawks above them. The road makes me think of what the French Mediterranean
littoral must have been before it was dotted over with countless vulgar
villas, covered with trees and shrubs that are not indigenous to the soil,
and tortured into trim gardens that might have strayed from a prosperous
suburb of London or Paris.
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