A messenger was despatched to Ben Daoud. ‘Tell the Governor,’ said Hooker, ‘that my Sultana gives me a large house with a garden to live in; hospitality would require that the Governor of Marocco should provide me—the guest of his Sultan—with a better house; but, in any case, I shall not live in a worse one.’ In a short time the messenger returned with the answer: ‘The Governor has no better house to give the Christians; but Marocco is large, and they are welcome to provide for themselves!’ It was then immediately decided to camp out for the night; and the better to mark our sense of the reception given us, it was at first proposed to pitch our tents outside the walls. From this, however, we were dissuaded. In such a position, apparently deprived of the protection of the local authorities, we should certainly, it was said, be attacked by robbers, from whom our Mogador escort might not prove a secure defence. It was finally decided that our best course would be to encamp in the great open space beside the chief mosque and tower of the Koutoubia. Our men had been ordered not to unload the baggage, so we were immediately under way. In the twilight the filth and abjectness of all that met the eye were not so glaringly prominent as before; but as we rode through more streets and lanes and open spaces, we saw no single building of the slightest pretension, until we entered the great square, at the farther end of which is the tower of the Koutoubia, the solitary specimen of architecture of which the ancient capital can boast. The daylight was fading fast, but enough remained to show that the spot of our encampment was anything but inviting. Go where we would the ground was covered with refuse of every kind, full of scorpion holes, and swarming with insects, of which the most abundant and unsightly, though the least mischievous, were very large black Coleoptera, distant relatives of our European cockroaches, and the whole space was bordered by a ditch or open drain that reeked with foul exhalations. Meanwhile, we had sent the captain of our escort with a message to Muley Hassan, the Viceroy, informing him of our resolution to encamp in our own tents, until a suitable house had been provided for us. A civil answer was returned, expressing a wish that we should not camp out, and saying that he had sent orders to Ben Daoud immediately to provide us a suitable residence. Soon after came a polite message from El Graoui, expressing his regret that we had not been lodged to our satisfaction, and forwarding a letter that he had addressed to Ben Daoud on the subject. Nearly an hour passed, when at last a final answer came from Ben Daoud, saying that it was then too late to comply with our wishes, but that on the following morning we should have a good house with a garden.