rds, as they are
called, attending on two grazing cows. White as geese, parading about on
black stilt-like legs, which raise them a foot or more off the ground,
they have yellow bills and a slightly puffed throat, in flight extending
their long legs behind them. Cow-birds wage war on the parasites of
mules, donkeys, oxen, and sheep, hopping about the fields and dropping
down on to their backs: they are never shot.

Morocco is by no means short of bird life. Only that morning, as we rode
along, we saw several pairs of whinchats, any number of crested larks,
some plover, pied and grey wagtails, starlings, and a sand-martin.
Starlings in Morocco fly literally in clouds like smoke, blackening the
sky wherever they are surging and wheeling. A single shot into the middle
of a flock has brought down from sixty to seventy of them.

We jogged up the last yard of rocky path, and found ourselves in front of
Tetuan in rather less than four hours after leaving the fondak, to the
satisfaction of Cadour: it was an improvement on the day before. This
ornament of the cavalry had now come out in a clean white turban, in view
of entering the city: he puzzled us at this point by leading the way off
the road to a white wall in the middle of the field, behind which
travellers occasionally camp, devout people pray, and sheep are
slaughtered at the time of the Great Feast. Here he produced our
luncheon. But we, in the innocence of our hearts, would "lunch at a cafe"
in Tetuan, after calling at the British Consulate and leaving our letters
of introduction: this, with signs and a Spanish word or two, was brought
home to Cadour, and we turned back, skirted the white city wall, reached
a gate built in an angle, and rode in under the archway, passing a few
figures in jellabs reclining and talking beside a great stone
water-trough, which was running with fresh water.

Following one of the worst-paved streets upon Allah's earth, whose
slippery rocks and pools of brown manure-water offered no tempting
footpath, the first Union Jack we had seen for many a long day appeared
above a wall and spoke _Britain_: towards it we made our way. A soldier
in a long dark blue cloak and high-peaked red fez was sitting at the
Consul's office door: he took our letters of introduction, and, without
our being able to explain ourselves in Arabic, insisted on ushering us
straight into the presence of the Consul--Mr. W. S. Bewicke.

We found him surrounded with papers a