A Diplomatic Overture 



have ventured to present ourselves attired so little a la 



modeP 



" Mais, messieurs, n'en parlez pas, je vous en prie. Cela se 



voit fort bien, et du reste, c'est une mise assez commode 



pour voyager. Moi aussi, j'ai voyage en Espagne. Is there 



anything I can do for you ? " 



" We are au dhespoir for a vessel to take us back to 



Europe ; and we understand that the steamer which 



brought your excellency is going back to Gibraltar ; we are 



ashamed to derange you on your arrival, but we have no 



alternative." 



" With the greatest pleasure, gentlemen : ce sont des 



petites complaisances que les nations se font mutuellement." 

 With which, having been thus made an international 

 affair, we were handed two small state-papers, requesting 

 the captain to receive us aboard ; and we took leave of our 

 polite benefactor with many thanks. 



That evening, taking a turn through the city for a fare- 

 well look, some camels, with wilder-looking Arabs than 

 common, came in at the western gate from the distant 

 deserts of the interior. We felt, on seeing them, more iden- 

 tified with the real inhabitants of Africa than we had been 

 by our intercourse with the tame barbarians of Tangier, so 

 much handled by Europeans as to be comparatively harm- 

 less, like Zoological Garden lions. Two Ethiopians, in the 

 same quarter of the city, which seems devoted to strangers 

 from the interior, sat cross-legged on the ground, rocking 

 themselves, and nodding their heads, and rolling up the 

 yellow whites of their idiotic eyes ; their thick lips were 

 dropped, and their dark brown oily features (without the 

 slightest vestige of consciousness) shining in the sunset. 

 We asked what was the matter with them, and found they 

 had been chewing hasheesh. 



l88 



