t moan. His mistress scowled, and warned me to take care what I was
about for an awkward fool. Her husband, with a pained look on his face,
mutely apologized for her, and I humbly excused myself and vowed
amendment. I am not revengeful, but I did enjoy it when one of the
porters, tottering under the weight of the fat lady, made a false step
and nearly gave her a sousing. I clambered on my particular Berber's
back, dear Albert in my arms, and we splashed merrily along; but Captain
No. 1, who turned the scales at seventeen stone two pounds, had not so
uneventful a landing. Twice his bearer halted, and the warrior,
abandoning himself to his fate, swore he would make the Berber's nose
probe the sand if he stumbled.

As I was discharged on the beach, I was confronted by a majestic Moor.
His grave brown face was fringed with a closely-trimmed jet-black beard,
and his upper lip was shaded with a jet-black moustache. He wore a white
turban and a wide-sleeved ample garment of snowy white, flowing in
graceful folds below his knees; and on his feet were loose yellow
slippers, peaked and turned up at the toes. This was Mahomet Lamarty,
better known as "Fat Mahomet," who had acted as interpreter to the
British troops in the Crimea, and who, at this period, was making an
income by supplying subalterns from Gib with masquerade suits to take
home and horses to ride. Mahomet in his sphere was a great man. He was
none of your loquacious _valets de place_, no courier of the
Transcendental school. He had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and was a
Hadji; he was a chieftain of a tribe in the vicinity, and had fought in
the war against the Spanish infidels; he could borrow his purest and
finest Arab from the Kadi; he was free to the sacred garden of the
Shereef, or Pope-Sultan, one of the descendants of the Prophet, Allah be
praised!

Mahomet, who was known to both the Captains, passed our small
impedimenta through the custom-house--there is an orthodox custom-house,
though there is no proper accommodation for shipping--and we trailed at
his heels up the close, crowded, rough alleys which did duty as streets.
It would be hard to imagine a more thorough-going change than our scurry
across the waves had effected. We were in another world completely. We
had been transported as on the carpet of the magician. It was as if the
calendar had been put back for centuries, and the half-forgotten
personages of the "Thousand-and-One Nights" were revivified a