Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/229

 CHAPTER XVI

A SULTAN'S PALACE O'ER A PIRATES' NEST

NCE on our westward way, this time between Meknes and Rabat, we again ran through a well-cultivated region where colonists supplemented the natives in the agricultural development.

In the valley of the Fra, one of the affluents of the Sbu, I noticed many small tortoises, Emys Leprosa, crawling along the bank near the water. On the grass-covered hills we frightened hares of a type that are common here, Lepus mediterraneus and rabbits, Cuniculus alginus, larger than the European ones and having short ears and dark-brown marking on their backs. Then not far from the military post of Bel Amri, which lies behind the half- European, half-Arab village in the southeastern part of the fertile plain of Beni Ahsen, I noticed a flock of bustard of the variety that is known from Senegal to the Mediterranean and is distinguished by their diminutive size—Otis Arabs.

From Knitra the character of the country changed, showing a sandy region interspersed with marshes and surrounded by shrubs, in which wild boars were known to be numerous. South of this the great Mamora forest of cork-oaks stretches away over some five hundred odd