Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/300

 CHAPTER XXI

WHITE SWANS ON AN AZURE SHORE

URING the early hours of morning our car was already heading westward from Marrakesh over an excellent road through prairies so burned by the powerful sun that they often looked like a desert. Across the Nfis River we carried on through uninteresting country until we came to the military post of Shishawa, set in olive-groves and fruit-orchards. I had visited Shishawa for a boar hunt and, though I had only the satisfaction of seeing one tusker shot at by another member of the party, I did not regret the day or the experience, for it gave me the opportunity to see the animal life in the desert and the conditions in the native Berber villages. Just beyond Shishawa we came upon another river, which was bordered by a thicket of tamarisks and was famed for the great quantity of fish it contributed to the countryside. Searching for a moment in its waters, I made out only an eel, this tramp of the sea.

Some fifty miles before we reached Mogador we ran into a well-peopled region with carefully cultivated fields around the native villages and a busy traffic on the road, which wound like a snake among the wooded hills, with oft-recurring white kubbas and zaouias on their highest points.