Just how Italy will set about realizing her African ambitions remains a matter for anxious speculation, though she has inserted an entering wedge by demanding a reopening of the highly delicate Tangier question, which, as every one conversant with Mediterranean politics knows, is loaded with high explosive. Whether Mussolini’s plans for colonial expansion, which he has emphasized over and over again in his public addresses, will lead to armed conflict with France is extremely doubtful; but he occupies a very strong position, not dissimilar to that occupied by the kaiser at the time of the Algeciras Conference, and he is a past master at the game of bluff. Certain it is that Il Duce intends, by hook or crook, to wring from France some sort of territorial concessions, to obtain for his rejuvenated Italy a place in the African sun. So, though it has been assumed by the more sanguine that the dove of peace has settled permanently on the soil of Morocco, it may prove to be only a bird of passage. [Illustration: STRANGE FOLK FROM THE FAR PLACES A negro clown from the Great Bend of the Niger A half-demented holy man from the Atlas] CHAPTER XX FROM A FASI HOUSETOP On passing from one country into another, one instinctively expects the change in sovereignty to be signalized by some distinctive and dramatic landmark, natural or artificial, such as the Statue of Liberty, the International Bridge across the Rio Grande, the Iron Gates on the Danube, the Simplon Tunnel, the Pass of Roncesvalles, or, at the very least, the black and yellow posts bearing the sign of the double eagle which marked the Muscovite frontiers in the days of the czars. But there is nothing distinctive or dramatic about entering Morocco. A few miles after leaving Lalla Maghnia we saw a red-white-and-blue striped sentry-box, and, just beyond it, a small, low, whitewashed building over which flew an unfamiliar flag, a green triangle on a scarlet ground. Tomine brought the car to a halt; a native official wearing a voluminous cape and a fez scrutinized our passports, glanced perfunctorily at our luggage, then waved us on, and we shot across a surveyor’s line into the Shereefian Empire.