ents and
camp outfit, write to the Villa Valentina, pay our bill, have our boxes
packed up and sent over to us at Tetuan by muleteer, and move ourselves
into the Spanish _fonda_ (inn) inside the city. Thus were we left for the
next six days with one clean collar apiece.

In Tangier there had been some speculation on the elasticity of the
Spartan wardrobes which we had brought out from England, at a moment when
the dread of a vast impedimenta happened to lie strong upon us. In Tetuan
such panics bury themselves. The slimmest wardrobe will suffice. A
country's own materials, whether home-spun of Kashmir or sheep-skin coat
of Afghanistan, naturally meet its requirements best: deficiencies are
easily supplied, and later on we lived in mufti off the backs of Tetuan
sheep.

Lying in bed in the early morning before it was light, duck were to be
heard calling up the river; and, breakfast over, we strolled down to the
banks, where the thick green orange-trees on the opposite side bore a
crop of cow-birds, sitting like a covey of white cockatoos on the tips of
the branches among the golden oranges, so thick and snowy that the tree
might well have burst into abnormal flower.

By nine o'clock the camp was struck, and we had burnt our ships: the last
of the five mules, three men, and baggage tailed off out of sight along
the road to Tangier.

Under a cloudy sky, prophesying rain, we walked into the city to look for
quarters: better, perhaps, a fonda in Tetuan than a tent at the fondak in
wet weather.

CHAPTER III

DIFFICULTIES OF "LODGINGS" IN MOROCCO--A SPANISH FONDA--A MOORISH TEA
PARTY--POISON IN THE CUP--SLAVES IN MOROCCO--EL DOOLLAH--MOORISH
CEMETERY--RIDE TO SEMSAR--SHOPPING IN TETUAN--PROVISIONS IN THE CITY.

CHAPTER III

This by God's grace is _El Moghreb_--Morocco--and here a wise man
is surprised at nothing that he sees and believes nothing that he
hears.

IT is not easy to find a lodging in Morocco: there are no _dak
bungalows_--no large white English residences, with the familiar and
hospitable _Burra Sahib_, a retinue of servants, spare horses, and a
spacious bedroom at the disposal of the unexpected guest. Hotels, except
at Tangier, are impossible for any length of time, unless to the vagaries
of Spanish or Jewish cookery the heart can harden itself.

We steeled our souls, assisted by the grateful sense of freedom from all
petty society functions, which in the nature of things