Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/285

 CHAPTER XX

A FEUDAL ATLAS TRIBE

HE Commander-in-chief of the Marrakesh district proposed to me a trip into the High Atlas, which I was subsequently informed was looked upon as the pride of the French policy in the country of Mulay Yusuf. One fine morning a military car drew up before the hotel, bringing Captain Deverre of the General Staff, with whom I was to make the journey.

After skirting the walls of the town, pink with the warmth of the morning light, the road shot out across the naked, stony plain, cut in many directions by caravan routes that led away and lost themselves in notches of the most northerly ranges of the mountains. As we sped on, the car overhauled strings of loaded camels, scattered groups of mules and donkeys and frightened villagers on the way to town or nomads wandering from place to place.

From time to time I noticed the crowns of palms protruding from round holes and learned, in answer to my rather astonished inquiry, that Marrakesh would never have been the capital and the city of commerce and pleasure that it now is, had it not been for these holes. They