sh
scale; while a wicker basket, like a large waste-paper basket, was full
of thirty or forty round cakes of bread, several sizes larger than a Bath
bun, made of the finest semolina flour, flavoured with aniseed and baked
a warm biscuit colour.

The Hadj pressed third cups upon us, but with the innate breeding of
every Moor understood the limited capacity born of early days in Morocco.
A Moor is nothing if not courteous, and, whatever his real feelings,
conceals them under polite speeches. He will, as somebody has said, "cut
your throat _most politely, most politely_," or with profound urbanity
offer you a cup of poison.

Our host had sipped a first cup before allowing the tea to be handed
round--a custom observed to assure the guest that the teapot was free
from poison, and that no deadly drink was offered us, containing seeds
which should propagate a horrible disease in the intestines, destroying
life sooner or later. Poisoning is only too common among the Moors
themselves, cases occurring almost every day in the country.

Once, when Sir John Hay was having an angry discussion with a
governor--Mokhta--coffee was brought in. Mokhta, as usual, took the cup
intended for the Englishman, and put it to his lips, making a noise as
though sipping it, but which sounded suspiciously like blowing into it,
and then offering it to Sir John. Not fancying the bubbled coffee, he
declined, saying to Mokhta, "I could not drink before you. Pray keep that
cup yourself," and helping himself at the same time to the second cup,
which he drank. Mokhta put down the cup which he had offered Sir John,
and did not drink it.

Some one in Tetuan dies every year of poisoning. Wives frequently kill
their husbands. No two brothers, both in ministerial offices at Court,
would dream of sitting down and eating together without precautions
beforehand, on account of _the marked pieces_ in the dish. One brother,
as he dines, may invite the other, who happens to enter, to join him in
the meal; but he will reply, "I have already dined." _He dare not._

Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli talked away in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, who
translated for us. He said that Menebbi, the Minister of War who went
over to England with the last embassy, and who is practically Prime
Minister, lost a considerable amount of influence during the short two
months he was away, but that he was rapidly gaining ground, and might be
said to be completely restored to favour again. Mene