re.

As we turned into the Villa Valentina a wonderful opal light warmed the
white city and the sand-hills--they were no longer cold nor colourless;
while banks of "rose" sunset-clouds were reflected "rose" in a grey-green
sea.

Tangier has two sides to it--one native, the other European. The European
side is all which appears on the surface, and it swamps the other. Given
each of the eleven Powers, with its minister, its minister's family, its
secretary, its attache, its interpreter, its student; add to these a
handful of English residents, a handful of English and American visitors,
and a handful of varied nationalities thrown in; back them up with the
necessary foundation of purveyors, and lower down still a substratum of
leeches and black-sheep, greedy Jews, needy Spaniards, introducing drink
and tobacco and gambling,--and there you have before you all the elements
of a highly civilized town on the Mediterranean shore. It may be Tangier:
it is not Morocco.

[Illustration: TANGIER.

[_To face p. 24._]

The Moorish aristocracy themselves speak of the place as
"Christian-ridden Tangier," and will have none of it: the Sultan says it
"no longer belongs to him." Its trade is _nil_, and what there is of it
is in the hands of the Jews, who boast eleven synagogues, schools, and a
Grand Rabbi at the head of all.

We brought introductions with us to various people, and met with every
hospitality in Tangier. Sir Arthur and Lady Nicolson, representing Great
Britain, do all in their power for visitors; and the colony of mixed
nationalities fills its off hours together, most successfully, with a
round of picnics, afternoon rides, tea parties, and other amusements,
implied by "wintering at Tangier"; from all of which any knowledge of
Morocco, or association with Moors, is far removed indeed.

A seaport which has neither roads nor railways to connect it with the
surrounding country, is isolated a week's journey from the nearest
capital town, and whose links with the outer world all tend seawards
through steamers to foreign countries, can never constitute a study of
the land to which it belongs only by right of position.

But Morocco itself had brought us to the north of Africa. Tangier could
only be a base for future operations, and consequently a fortnight of
Tangier sufficed, finding us bent upon moving on, before the heavy rains
broke, and the swollen rivers made travelling impossible. Travelling in
Morocco is never at