here fortunately without a suggestion of anything stronger
than “ gunpowder.”
Yes, this style of thing decidedly has its delights— of
which the above must not be taken as the most elevating
specimen,— and many are the pleasant
^Existence memories which come before me as I mentally
review my life “ as a Moor.” In doing so I
seem to be again transported to another world, to live
another life, as was my continual feeling at the timé.
Everything around me was so different, my very actions
and thoughts so complete a change from what they were
under civilization, that when the courier brought the
periodical budget of letters and papers I felt as one in
a dream, even my mother tongue sounding strange after
not having heard it so long. I seemed to be living two
lives, interchangeable, and yet distinct, and so still seem
its memories.
I like the Moors, with all their faults, and am not
ashamed to confess it, and I would enjoy the opportunity
of once more mixing with them in the same
Object. congenial style. My object on previous occasions
was to seize every opportunity of becoming acquainted
with things Moorish, especially with the habits and
opinions of the people, and the result was in every way
satisfactory. But such a task was one of varied, sometimes
strange, experience.
Often I have had to “ put u p ” in strange quarters;
• sometimes without any quarters at all. I have slept in
the mansions of Moorish merchants, and rolled
Strange ;n my cloak in the street. I have occupied
OudvtcTs•
the guest chambers of country governors and
sheikhs, and I have passed the night on the wheat in
a granary, wondering whether fleas or grains were more
numerous. I have been accommodated in the house of a
Jewish Rabbi, making a somewhat similar observation
with regard to an insect of far worse type with which it
swarmed, and I have been the guest of a Jewish Consular
Agent of a Foreign Power, where the awful stench
from the drains was not exceeded by that of the worst
hovel I ever entered. I have even succeeded in wooing
Morpheus out on the sea-shore, under the lea of a rock,
and I have found the débris by the side of a straw rick
an excellent couch till it came on to rain. Y e t again, I
“ a n ig h t ’s l o d g in g ” in r a h a m n a .
Photograph by D r. Rudduck.
have been one of half a dozen on the floor of a window-
less and doorless summer-house in the middle of the rainy
season. The tent of the wandering Arab has afforded
me shelter, along with calves and chickens and legions
of fleas, and I have actually passed the night in a
village mosque.
Once my lodging was a hut in which a quadruple
murder had been committed, empty and even uncleaned