give him a sheet of paper and envelope? They
were produced. We were not quite prepared for it, when he at once drew up
a chair, sat down at the table, and politely asked for a pencil. But it
was impossible to snub so simple and well-meaning a child. I sharpened a
pencil, and S`lam wrote diligently for quite half an hour, without a
pause, from right to left, wonderful spidery characters: it was a long
letter to his old master down in Morocco City. He held his
string-turbaned head on one side, and was without embarrassment as he sat
between R. and myself (one of us worked, the other wrote); indeed, S`lam
might have spent his evenings in a drawing-room all his life. When the
letter was finished, he accepted a stamp most gratefully, wished us "Bon
soir," and departed.

Tahara had her eccentricities too, of which one was an extraordinary
aptitude for annexing wherewithal to tie round her head in place of her
own yellow silk scarf, which was kept for high days. One week one of our
table-napkins was raised to this honour; the next one of our clean
bedroom towels had taken its place round her dark locks.

I made her a present of a flannel shirt to wear, but the second day S`lam
had appropriated that, and wore it in place of his waistcoat, unbuttoned.

Apparently, in the eyes of the Tetuan world, we were taking a most
unprecedented and foolhardy step in sleeping outside the city in the
winter: the Ceuta "road" near us was said to be famous for robbery and
murder. For some reason or other a reputation clung to us of being
fabulously rich. The Moors warned, the missionaries seriously
expostulated with us. None of them would have done it, and Mr. Bewicke
was put down as mad for countenancing such an action. But we had two men
in the house at night; for, besides S`lam, a labourer was induced to
sleep in the mules' stable for our protection, and we had a couple of
rifles and a revolver. Now, since the news of the murder of A----, one
wonders . . . . . But _he_ was alone: _we_ had the safety of numbers.

To show how jealous Moors can be, and what precautions they take about
their women, S`lam never allowed the labourer inside the garden gate
unless he himself had come in. The man sat and waited on the bank. Then,
after he was installed in the stable, the door between the kitchen and
stable was locked and bolted. When we went out, Tahara was made to bolt
every door; and if any one came to the house, she would only call down to
them