ifting
and diversified.

The hotel where we put up was owned by Bruzeaud, formerly a messman of a
British regiment. It was approached by a filthy lane, and commanded a
prospect of a square not much larger than a billiard-table. In the
middle of this square was the limp body of a deceased mongoose. At the
opposite side of it was a Mahometan school, where the children were
instructed in the Koran, and their treble voices as they recited the
inspired verses in unison kept up drone for hours. The build and
surroundings of the hostelry left much opening for improvement, but we
had no valid ground for complaint. The beds were clean, Bruzeaud was a
good cook, the waiter was attentive and smiled perpetually, which made
up for his stupidity; we had a single agreeable fellow-guest in a
Frenchman, who spoke Arabic, and had lived in the city of Morocco as a
pretended follower of the Prophet; and, besides, there was that dry
undoctored champagne, which it is permissible to drink at all meals in
Africa.

There was another hotel in Tangier, a more pretentious establishment,
owned by one Martin--surname unknown. Martin was a character. He was an
unmitigated coloured gentleman, blubber-lipped and black as the ace of
spades, with saffron-red streaks at the corners of his optics. He was a
native of one of the West India Islands, I believe, but I will not be
positive. Mahomet Lamarty pressed me to tell him in what English county
Englishmen were born black, and when I said in none, he gravely
ejaculated that in that case Martin was a liar, and habitually ate dirt.
To avert possible complications into which I might have been drawn, I
had to hasten to explain that Martin might possibly have been born in a
part of England known as the Black Country. He had served in the
steward's department on the ship of war where the Duke of Edinburgh,
then Prince Alfred and a middy, was picking up seamanship. Hence his
Jove-like hauteur. He had rubbed-skirts with Royalty, and to his
fetter-shadowed soul some of the divinity which hedges kings and their
relatives had adhered to him. I never met a darkey who could put on such
fearful and wonderful airs. Where he did not order he condescended. He
showed me an Irish constabulary revolver which he had received from "his
old friend, Lord Francis Conyngham--'pon honour, he was delighted to
meet him. It was good for sore eyes--who'd a-thought of his turning up
there!" Splendidly inflated Martin was when he spoke