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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.
Bewicke and his soldier rode with us: the latter a dark, lean-faced, unwholesome-looking man, unable, like so many of his countrymen, to grow any hair on his face an obsequious individual too, inspiring little trust; below his long blue cloak he wore brown riding-boots, embroidered with orange, and fastening up the back with orange-thread buttons.
Bewicke, he drew the tray close to the low divan in front of him, saw that his sons provided cushions for our backs, and proceeded to wash the green tea in a bright nickel pear-shaped teapot, with water from the great brass urn which stood over a charcoal-burner: the washed tea was then transferred into a twin teapot, which the Hadj generously filled with immense lumps of sugar out of a glass dish standing on a tray by itself, stacked high with great blocks split off the cone with a hatchet.
Sometimes we breakfasted in the garden: we were never in to lunch on fine days, but rode and walked all over the country, occasionally with the lady missionaries or Mr. Bewicke, but oftener alone with the big grey donkey and a boy.
Finally, Amanda's step, with a great plate of hot toast and a tall tin coffee-pot: black coffee was the best part of the meal. A day or two after settling into the fonda we were asked to our first entertainment in a Moorish house. Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli wanted Mr. Bewicke and ourselves to "tea" with him.
Happily Tetuan was exempt from waterspouts, and on days when the rain gave over for a time we rode, or, picking our way along the muddy streets, drank tea with some Moor. One dull afternoon we sampled the state of the roads outside, R. on a donkey, and Mr. Bewicke and myself on foot.
Once a week, one of the little donkeys, which passed along our "lane" in droves, carrying charcoal into the sok, was waylaid, brought into the garden, and its three pannierfuls commandeered for us and stored in the mules' stable, where Tahara did the washing in a great tub bought from Mr. Bewicke. Milk was left every morning by a Moor, who took it in for sale to the sok.
Alarbi Abresha has been nicknamed "the Duke of Westminster" the wealthiest man in Tetuan. A slave responded to the hammer of the great knocker, demanded who knocked, and then opened the door. Alarbi Abresha was out; but his son, a youth badly marked with small-pox, received us, dressed in a jellab of pale blue, tasselled, and worked in white. Mr. Bewicke asked after the house.
Bewicke, who translated for us. He said that Menebbi, the Minister of War who went over to England with the last embassy, and who is practically Prime Minister, lost a considerable amount of influence during the short two months he was away, but that he was rapidly gaining ground, and might be said to be completely restored to favour again.
Bewicke was offered a house and garden for seven pounds ten a month: some time after the landlord asked three pounds; eventually he came down to thirty-nine shillings. Having handed a month's rent over to Ali Slowee, he had Jinan Dolero done up, whitewashed at least, outside and in, from top to toe a rite performed on every opportunity all the year round in Morocco, like spring-cleanings at home.
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