Chris slept fitfully and woke early. He took a swig from his undisturbed coke bottle and left the room.

It was not long gone dawn and neither leaf nor foot had yet stirred. Christopher crept through the courtyard and quietly opened the heavy front door. On the other side, poised with keys in hand and French loaf under arm, stood the Berber, Hadji Sy.id.

"Ah. Good morning. I bring breakfast."

Breakfast in Ketama was goat cheese, Turkish coffee, and hashish (there being no kif). Time wound on, and then they left, still early, but with the world awake.

Outside Ketama, just passed the last house, off to the site of the road, was a small fair: a cluster of painted caravan.

"We look?" said Chris.

"We no look," said Sa.id.

"We look!" said Chris.

The fair was a semi-circle of four horse-drawn caravans very like the ones Chris had met outside Algeciras. They were painted the same, but these had written signs atop them. The sign over one announced boldly, "NONAMES CIRCUS". (The signs over the other wagons were in other languages.)

Approaching the semi-Circus, Chris and Hadji passed a fruit tree with its trunk covered in a collage of fly-bill posters. One, round the side of the tree, eye high, was in English:-

Under the shade of the old citrus tree by the side of the road was a table and on the table sat a girl. Chris stepped round the tree to see. She had straw-gold hair to her waist and in it the leaf-shaded sun played rainbows. The girl wore a silken sari, liquid blue and changing hue like the sea. Her face was round and frank, like a child’s - she wasn’t much older.