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Tired after the vigil of the previous night and the long hours that had led up to it, we reclined at our ease under the olives, determined to spend the night at Sidi el Muktar, some fifteen or twenty miles away. From there one can hunt the great bustard, and I had hoped to do so until I saw the animals that were to take us to the coast.
A few crops were raised on the surrounding fields, and small herds of sheep and goats managed to pick up some sort of a living on the surrounding lands, but poverty reigned there, and Ain Umast is of small account by the side of Sidi el Muktar, which is the burial-place of a saint, whose miracles are still acknowledged by all the faithful who happen to have met with good luck of any sort.
After a two-hours' rest, given in one case more to sleep than lunch, we moved on towards the village of Sidi el Muktar, passing some curious flat-topped hills called by the natives Haunk Ijjimmal. The oasis had ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the road became as uninteresting as was our own crawling gait.
The sight set me thinking of the mutual suspicions of the Bedouins and the Susi traders, the raiding of Sidi el Muktar, the other signs of tribal fighting that had been apparent on the road, the persecution of the Moor by his protected fellow-subjects, in short, the whole failure of the administration to which the ruin that stood before me seemed to give fitting expression.
The "Sons of Lions" had broken up the market at Sidi el Muktar on the previous Friday before it was properly concluded, and many natives, disappointed there, had come out to Hanchen to do their business, until there seemed to be nothing in any stall that lacked buyers.
This was annoying, since one of the objects of ordering a good supply each night was to enable the long-suffering beasts to compass a better speed on the following day. That evening there was great excitement in the douar. The elders came round our fire after supper and sought to know if it were true that the "Sons of Lions" had blotted out Sidi el Muktar, and put all its inhabitants to the sword.
The absence of the Court Elevated by Allah was to be deplored, for had my Lord Abd-el-Aziz been in residence at Marrakesh some other kaid would have made him a bid for the place of the ruler of Sidi el Muktar, basing his offer upon the fact that the present governor could not keep order. A change might have been for the better it could hardly have been for the worse.
Then they picked up their old stride, and one by one resumed the love-songs of yesterday as we moved slowly over the plains to where, in the far distance, Sidi el Muktar stood between us and the fast setting sun, placed near to the junction of three provinces Oulad bou Sba, through which we travelled, M'touga, famous for fleet horses, and Shiadma, where our road lay.
Before the evening was over the elders of Ain Umast had acknowledged, rather regretfully I thought, that the tyrant of Sidi el Muktar must hide a diminished head before his brother of the Sus. The triumph of the grimy men from Tiensiert was then complete. They were a sorry set of fellows enough, to outward seeming, but how shall a European judge them fairly?
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