They regarded the slaves as merchandise, to be kept in tolerably
fair condition for the sake of good sales, and unless Ruskin was right
when he said that all who are not actively kind are cruel, there seemed
small ground on which to condemn them. To be sure, they were taking slaves
from market to market, and not bringing Soudanese captives from the
extreme South, so we saw no trace of the trouble that comes of forced
travel in the desert, but even that is equally shared by dealers and slave
alike.
The villages of Morocco are no more than collections of conical huts built
of mud and wattle and palmetto, or goat and camel skins. These huts are
set in a circle all opening to the centre, where the live-stock and
agricultural implements are kept at night. The furniture of a tent is
simple enough. Handloom and handmill, earthenware jars, clay lamps, a
mattress, and perhaps a tea-kettle fulfil all requirements.
A dazzling, white-domed saint's shrine within four square walls lights the
landscape here and there, and gives to some douar such glory as a holy man
can yield when he has been dead so long that none can tell the special
direction his holiness took.
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