the Government seized him, no money was found in his house; but
three hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods in the shape of carpets,
mirrors, gilt bedsteads, etc., were confiscated. His post, however, is
still vacant: he is a good man, and possibly the Government will repent
of its hasty step, and in due time restore such a valuable servant to
favour. On the other hand, Ben Dowd may be ruined for life.

The bashas and kaids of Morocco were all gnashing their teeth, while we
were at Marrakesh, over the new system of taxation, which the Sultan and
a certain progressive member of his Government, are endeavouring to
introduce into the country. The main idea in these new regulations is,
that governors will be paid specified salaries by the Government--that
they will collect taxes as usual, but send the amount of money collected
intact to Court, not, as has been the custom hitherto, docking off the
half, it may be, and pocketing it as their own pay. Again, each province
has been lately inspected by a certain number of trustworthy men, who
have fixed its rate of taxation. The countryman is to pay so much upon
his possessions--for example, ninepence for a cow, three shillings for a
horse, twopence-halfpenny for an olive-tree, three shillings for a camel,
no more and no less--instead of having the utmost squeezed out of him,
which has been the practice of the governors up till now.

The scheme sounds excellent. A letter has been read aloud in every city
and country market-place, apprising the people of the new law, and they
are delighted in proportion, but scarcely believe that the Government
will be strong enough to enforce it. Indeed, it is hardly probable that
the new taxation system can succeed unless two important steps are first
taken--the tribes must be disarmed, and a new set of governors be
appointed to take the place of the old. As long as the tribesmen are
armed, there can never be law and order, any more than there can be
settled peace upon the Indian frontier under the same conditions. At one
moment the tribes will side with the Government, at another they will
take the part of a governor, at another they will attack a neighbouring
tribe. It is all very well to tax such men justly and to treat them like
civilized beings, instead of trampling them underfoot, preventing their
becoming rich, and holding them to be ignorant devils; but they are not
civilized, unfortunately--they have not sufficient education to know