31.10.38

Ditto. One egg. Inside bad again.

Fruit on sale here much resembling a strawberry, but full of pips & has an unpleasant sour taste.

Put paraffin on water in the fountain yesterday. About 30 square feet, & about a cupful of paraffin covered it. Mosquito larvae all dead by this morning.

The plough used here has a crossbar which passes under the bellies of the two draft animals, & to this are attached the yokes – wooden for oxen & sackcloth for horses etc. Oxen, mules, horses & even donkeys used for ploughing. Two different animals sometimes yoked together.

The ploughman walks on the already ploughed side & holds the handle with one hand, changing at each furrow. The share is only a sort of hollow iron point fitted over a wooden rod. The whole structure can be easily carried over the shoulder. Absence of wheel makes it far harder to guide.

30.10.38

Fine, not very hot. One egg.

28.10.38

One egg. Many black beetles squashed in the road. Inside they are brilliant vermillion. Men ploughing with teams of oxen after the rain. Wretched ploughs, with no wheel, which only stir the soil.

27.10.38

On Tuesday afternoon (25th) tremendous rain, much as in the tropics except that it was very cold rain. Everything has flooded feet deep, the earth not yet dry. The Oued Tensift is now quite a considerable stream & low ground all round it has turned into marsh. Today near the Oeud Tensift came upon a large pool where there were° a flight of wild ducks swimming about. Managed to scare them onto the wing & after much circling around they came straight overhead. Sixteen in number, & evidently mallards, same as in England, or very similar. Saw another larger flight in the distance afterwards. Almost the first game birds seen here.
Ordinary sparrows fairly common in the garden here. In Marrakech itself one used not to see them.

Large numbers of black beetles, about 1” long, crawling everywhere, evidently brought out by the rain. Have sowed sunflowers, sweet peas & marigolds. The other seeds not up yet, as it has been much cooler (we are having fires every evening.) The ground here is lumpy & unpleasant to work, but at present not many weeds – more when this rain has taken effect, perhaps. Some weeds as in England, eg. bindweed & twitchgrass, but not growing very strongly. Silver poplar or some very similar tree grows here. Tomatoes here are grown in large patches without sticks. Very poor floppy plants & smallish tomatoes, but plenty of them.

Yesterday on milking the brown goat found her milk had gone sour & came out quite thick. This is because she is only being milked once a day & had not been fully milked for two days owing to her restiveness. Squeezed the bad milk onto the ground & tonight her milk was all right again. Another hen bad in the legs this evening. Examined & found enormous black lice. Hope treatment will be effective as before. The stripey goat’s milk increases, but very slightly, still not much over 1/2 pint a day. She is very thin, though she eats well. The present ration of hard food is 2 handfuls of barley & 2 of bran morning & evening, with a mash of boiled maize & bran about once a week.

The doves readily eat maize if it is broken.

Today saw some doves in an aviary which had eggs.

The fountain in front of the house filled up after the rain & mosquito larvae are multiplying rapidly.
One egg (the first) yesterday, none today.

25.10.38

Much cooler. Yesterday overcast & cool all day, with occasional sharp showers. Violent wind & storms of rain in the night. Fire last night & this morning, not absolutely necessary but acceptable.

The brown goat, besides being very difficult to milk, gives little or nothing. Perhaps she is really going off preparatory to kidding, in which case she would probably kid in some weeks’ time.

The pigeons this morning of their own accord went into the pigeon-house in which we put them for our first day here. They are now very tame.

Goats eat boiled wheat & maize readily.

23.10.38

The water here evidently has some minerals in it which is the cause of the almost continuous belly ache we have had since coming here. Near the Oued Tensift noticed that where the water had receded it had left some white deposit behind. Possibly something akin to Epsom salts – at any rate not an organism as it is not affected by boiling. Arranging to get Marrakech tap water (which is all right & said to come from the Atlas.) Various bottled table-waters impossibly expensive, actually dearer than the cheapest wine.
Soil here is extremely deep, at least 4’ without any change of substance. Rather light & reddish, though it dries into a kind of brick, & said to need a lot of manure.

Some of the small oranges (“mandarins”) are yellowing. Some lemons almost ripe, others only in blossom – different kinds, perhaps.¹

Today the first day we have had when it was cool all the time. Overcast, windy & some rain rather like a damp day in September in England. The day before yesterday a little rain with much thunder.

The doves come to the house from time to time & are very tame, eating from one’s hand with a little persuasion. Saw a partridge in the grounds yesterday.

Today sowed seeds of nasturtiums, phlox D.² & pansies.

Flytox very good & kills flies by the thousand. Otherwise they are utterly intolerable.

Red chilis° spread out to dry in the fields, like huge red carpets.

¹ Orwell was evidently unaware that in the lemon all stages of flowering and fruiting occur at the same time. He does know this later; see Domestic Diary, 4.3.39.

² Perhaps this was the annual phlox drummondii, which is found in several varieties. Peter Davison

21.10.38

Yesterday went to the Oued Tensift, about 2Km. from here, the principal river of these parts. About 5 yards wide & 1 – 3’ deep, but lies in a considerable valley & probably rises at some times of the year. Poor water, but said to have small fish in it. Muddy banks & bottom. Fresh water mussels, very similar to those in the Thames, moving to & fro in the mud leaving deep track behind them. Red shank & ringed plover, or extremely similar birds, live on the mud. Feathery shrub which in England is used for making hedges, arbutus¹ I think, growing everywhere. Patches of grass almost like English grass.

Still very hot. Last night unbearably so till quite late at night.

The water here is almost undrinkable, not only tasting of mud but also distinctly salty.

The bitter oranges grown here as grafting stock said to be good for marmalade, so presumably the same as Seville oranges. Some of the goats round here a bright silvery-grey colour. First class Spanish goat said to cost Frs. 500.

¹ It is not certain what Orwell is describing, since arbutus has leathery, rather than feathery, leaves. The most likely possibility is tamarisk, which could grow in the situation Orwell describes. Peter Davison

20.10.38

The two turtle doves after about 2 days plucked up the courage to leave their house, flew off & presently disappeared. The Arabs said that they would not return. However, they come every day for corn, & sleep in the pepper tree behind the house.

M. Simont’s sheep are allowed to browse among the orange trees. Apparently the idea is that they will not eat the leaves of the trees (presumably bitter) but will keep the weeds down. Actually they do nibble at a leaf occasionally.

Cooler. Nice autumnal feeling in the early mornings.

Goats giving distinctly more milk. More than 1/2 pint, though am only milking the brown one once daily.
Hens all well, but no eggs. These hens, even allowing for size, have extraordinarily small appetites.
Arabs round here growing practically all English vegetables (carrots, radishes, cabbages, tomatoes, runner beans, crown artichokes, marrows) besides large green chilis° which are extremely hot. Most of the vegetables rather poor quality. Dates very dry & poor. Sheep here eat half-ripe dates.

The charcoal braziers generally used here are quite satisfactory for cooking. They are generally about 1’ across by 8” deep & either have very many holes in sides or a double bottom with holes in the top one. The charcoal can be started with very little paper & wood & smoulders for hours. A few strokes with the bellows gets it into a fierce heat. A small tin oven is placed on top & bakes fairly satisfactorily.

18.10.38

We have now lost 3 fowls in addition to the one which was presumably pecked to death. Symptoms all the same – loss of power of legs & head drooping. Evidently paralysis, tho’ attributed by the Arabs to a black parasite infesting the birds. Cause & effect uncertain here. The Arabs’ treatment is rubbing with a mixture of charcoal ash, salt & water. Seems effective, at any rate two which were slightly affected seem better to day° & able to run about. The remaining 8 fowls seem now in good condition, but their appetite is very small even allowing for small size. They will never eat maize unless boiled, & do not care greatly for mash.

Goats tamer. Am milking the small one only once a day, & getting about 1/2 pint a day from the two. Even this is more than a few days back. The small one had slight diarrhea yesterday, probably caused by too much wet green fodder, so am now drying the lucerne into a kind of hay. About the same time one of M. Simont’s sheep mysteriously died – attributed to eating too much of the herbage which sprang up after the rain. Goats will eat almost anything, eg. orange peel, & a certain amount of maize can be given to them if boiled & mixed with mash. Flaked maize not obtainable here. The goats already follow & know the way to their shed.

Saw a lizard this morning, walking up the window pane. About 4” long, rather stumpy, resembling an alligator, prickly tail. The first lizard seen in Morocco.

A little cooler, & today very still.

Large ants can drag two peppercorns & the twig connecting them. Ants of various sizes drag a grain of wheat each.

The fowls perched on the new perch for the first time last night.

16.10.38, Villa Simont, route de Casablanca

Yesterday intolerably hot. In the evening thunderstorms & torrential rain, flooding the ground some inches deep.

This morning a disaster. One hen dead, another evidently dying. Forget the name of the disease, which has something to do with the throat. The hen is unable to stand & head droops forward. The dead one had evidently perched for the night & then fallen off the perch. May have something to do with perching in the rain, as they all did so, though I put up another perch for them under cover.

Goats a little tamer. The wife of the Arab who works in the orange plantation & looks after the sheep says that the brown goat is in kid.