312 HOSPITALITY TO RELATIVES. ch. iii. 



manners of the country. ' Yes,' said Mr. Carstensen, ' he 

 is a fine-looking fellow, but he is not much better than 

 other men of his class. Last year he poisoned two friends 

 of mine under very discreditable circumstances.' The 

 victims were men of consequence, near kinsmen of the 

 Grovernor, and supposed to have much influence among 

 the Shedma people who resided in Mogador. Early 

 in the preceding year they were induced by hospitable 

 messages to pay a visit to their powerful relative. Familiar 

 with the ways of Marocco, and feeling sure that his friends 

 were objects of jealousy and suspicion to the great man, 

 Mr. Carstensen at once wrote an urgent letter, in which he 

 expressed his strong anxiety for the safety of the visitors. 

 He soon received a reply written in the most reassuring 

 terms : ' Far be it from me,' wrote the Grovernor, ' to harm 

 these men ; I shall take every care of them, and cherish 

 them as if they were my own children.' A few weeks 

 later another letter reached Mogador: 'Nothing could 

 exceed the Grovernor's grief at having to announce that 

 one of his guests had been taken suddenly ill, and soon 

 after died. Such, however, was the decree of Allah, and 

 we must all be resigned to his will.' Mr. Carstensen was 

 not surprised when, a little later, another letter reached 

 him, conveying in nearly the same terms an account of the 

 death of the second guest. He had no doubt of foul play 

 having been used ; but some months later received further 

 assurance, when, on taxing the Grovernor's son (our fat 

 friend) with his suspicions, the latter answered : ' Well, 

 the fact is that my papa did not know what to do with 

 them, so he had them poisoned.' 



It seems strange at the present day to find so near to 

 Europe a condition of society in some respects so like 

 that of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 

 wherein no deed of atrocity committed by men in author- 

 ity awakens the slightest feeling of moral reprobation. 

 In the present instance local ideas had so far prevailed 

 that Mr. Carstensen did not consider it expedient to allow 



