are unknown in a
city where one vice-consul, six women missionaries, and a post-office
alone represent the British flag--where there is no English doctor, no
English church.

Tetuan met all our needs: the only question was where to live.

Immediately outside its walls lies a land of gardens and orchards. Every
Moor who can afford it has a garden, wherein he cultivates grapes and
fruit-trees,--a dim reflection of that Paradise of his, which must be
chequered with acres of shade cast by great rocks and gigantic
olive-trees; which must be abundantly watered by running brooks of milk,
honey, and wine; whose soil shall be flour, white as snow. The Moor's
Garden of Eden reserved for the faithful after death bespeaks abundance
and repose, differing but little from a certain Heaven of Epicures,
wherein _pates de fois gras_ were eaten to the sound of trumpets.
Somewhere in his garden outside Tetuan he builds himself a garden-house,
to which in the summer he migrates with his wife and slaves and the
children of both, his divans, carpets, and kitchen utensils: the town
house is locked up and stands empty while he spends four or five months
under his vines and figs.

At the time we arrived in Tetuan--early December--not a garden-house but
still lay empty; and naturally in their direction our longing eyes
turned--an impossible desire, it was said, thereby clinching the resolve
to make a superhuman effort to bring it to pass: between living in the
city and a garden there could be no choice. In the meantime a Spanish
fonda must constitute a make-shift until that came which is laid down for
those who wait.

Inside Tetuan two hotels presented themselves. With fonda number one we
could not come to terms; it was not attractive-looking: we took a
high-handed line and left. Fonda number two, after much haggling in
Spanish, agreed to take us both at the modest sum of seven-and-sixpence a
day, all included. No sooner was the bargain struck than a messenger
arrived post-haste from fonda number one, to say that they would take us
at our own terms. Their golden opportunity was lost. Report said fonda
number one might be a trifle cleaner, but fonda number two had the better
cook: the inside man carried the day in favour of number two.

[Illustration: A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE.

[_To face p. 66._]

It was one among many flat-roofed whitewashed houses in the Moorish
Quarter, in a street barely six feet wide. There was no outlook exce