. There was a great crowd of rather miscellaneous
company at the _table-d'hote_. One French female, whom, without
offence to gallantry, I may be permitted to describe as the ugliest
woman I met in my travels, excited my especial horror. This charming
person actually amused herself, and disgusted her neighbours, by
indulging, _across the table_, in an amusement generally associated
in men's minds with the chewing of tobacco! I discovered, however,
that she was only a servant maid.

CHAPTER IX.

MARSA.

Angelo's Horsemanship.--The Bey's Palace at Marsa.--The Arabs and
their Love of Tobacco.--The Friendly Moor at Camatte.

On the first of April I rode to Marsa, a little town on the seashore.
Angelo's horse seemed rather fresh, and my servant was evidently no
Centaur. He came up to me in an olive wood, where I made a halt for
about five minutes. He was holding on hard by the mane, his trousers
were up to his knees, and his face was horribly pale. On my asking him
why he loitered behind so, he owned, with a dismal sigh, that he was
half afraid of the horse. "Afraid of the horse, sir!" was poor
Angelo's lament: "Very wicked horse, sir--fell from a horse, sir--at
Scutari, sir--broke three ribs, sir--and in hospital five weeks,
sir!"

I told him to be of good cheer, for the horse would soon be quiet
after a good gallop; and, tying the horses to some olive trees, I bade
Angelo wait for me by the side of a little hillock in the plain, where
I could readily find him on my return, and went away into the forest
with my gun. The ground was covered with long, thick, pointed grass,
very wet with the dew. I saw some quails, and shot a few; then
returned to where Angelo was waiting, and galloped on to Marsa. At
this place, the Bey, and the principal inhabitants of Tunis, have
summer residences, to which they resort for the sake of sea-bathing.
On the way, I encountered a number of Arabs, mounted on mules. The
foremost shouted out to me in Arabic, as I passed, asking me to stop
and give him some tobacco. I understood the word "tobacco," which
seems to have nearly the same sound in all languages, and knowing this
request to be often a "dodge" on the part of the Arabs, who want an
opportunity to rob, if not to murder, the traveller, I pointed to
Angelo, who was following, about fifty paces behind me, with my gun,
and shouted out that _he_ would find tobacco for them. They evidently
understood my meaning; for they all set