out of our bedroom window.

The first night we slept in our garden-house and for several nights
after, the basha took upon himself to send us out a guard of soldiers,
who were responsible for our safety. We never asked this favour, and were
annoyed; for they slept under our windows, talked and coughed the whole
night, lay on the bulbs in a flower-bed, and stole the lemons. Seeing,
however, that we did not pay them anything at all for the attention, the
basha soon grew tired of sending them, much to our relief; for when, to
prevent their depredations, we locked them outside the garden door, they
broke down our fence, scrambled into the garden, and lay under the
prickly pears, as being a safer place than the lane outside.

There has never such a thing been known, as a guard without a cough, or
who do not talk. If told to be silent, they reply that they must talk to
keep awake; for if they fell asleep, how could they guard? Occasionally,
to show how much on the alert they are, guards will discharge their guns
in the dead of night. Altogether Moorish soldiers at close quarters are
not conducive to sleep.

We had an excitement one night, but it turned out to be groundless. Guns
were fired from the garden-house below ours, repeatedly, about 10 p.m.,
and S`lam got into a fever of excitement, brought his rifle up into our
sitting-room, and sat watching at one of the windows. He thought it was
tribesmen come down from the hills to rob. At last the firing stopped,
and R. and I went to bed; but S`lam was up all night, and Tahara brought
their mattress upstairs and slept in our sitting-room for safety. It
turned out to be Moors who had come out to sleep for one night, and were
amusing themselves by firing rifles from the loop-holes and out in the
garden.

There is an advantage in being in a country where game is not sacred. For
instance, one evening after tea, standing on the steps outside our
"bungalow," in the hush which came just after sunset, R. and I were
startled by a familiar call over in the garden next ours. S`lam was
strolling about, and confirmed our supposition--a partridge. We went
indoors and forgot about it; but ten minutes later the report of a gun
brought us out again, and there was S`lam crashing over the great bamboo
fence into "next door" with his rifle, scudding across our neighbour's
beans, then stooping down over something; a second later and he was back
again, across the palisade like a lamplighter, and s