With regard to the position of the Jews, there can be no doubt that the benevolent efforts of Sir Moses Montefiore, backed up by the representatives of England and other civilised States, have produced some permanent effect. In the coast towns, under the eyes of European consular agents, they seem to enjoy security from violence, and even from insult. In the city of Marocco, where they inhabit a separate quarter, walled in and accessible only by two gates, they are safe so long as they keep within those limits; but they are still forced to walk barefoot when they pass into the city, and are exposed to derision and insult against which they dare not protest. In the remoter parts of the territory, where their scattered communities are found here and there, their condition is apparently still worse, and they are frequently subjected to brutal ill-usage; but even there their superior intelligence and skill in industrial crafts, for which the Moor is incompetent, secures them a certain degree of consideration.[2] We this day made acquaintance with Kaïd el Hasbi, the captain of the escort of five men, who, along with our Mogador guard, was to travel with us through the Atlas. Nature had given him a disagreeable countenance with a forbidding expression, and our subsequent experience fully confirmed the first unfavourable impression. It had been arranged that our first day’s journey from Marocco was to be a short one, and accordingly our final start on Monday, May 8, was delayed until 8 A.M. Our large tent, too heavy for mules, had been sent back to Mogador; but, nevertheless, our baggage formed a very sufficient load for nine mules. Not counting our interpreter and Hooker’s European attendant, we had nine followers engaged in various capacities, besides twelve men in charge of the hired animals, making up altogether, with the escort, who numbered nine privates and two officers, a party of thirty-seven men and thirty-three horses and mules. We wound slowly through the filthy lanes of the Jews’ quarter, and went out by the south-east gate of the city, having on our right the high wall that encloses the vast gardens attached to the Sultan’s residence. Having entered the city through groves of the date-palm, the foliage of which is too tough for the teeth of the locust, we had scarcely noticed these pernicious creatures on that occasion; but in the well-irrigated tracts south and west of the city which are devoted to tillage they had this year been more than usually destructive. It is in their young condition, while still active on the wing, that their voracity is greatest; but in that stage it is practically impossible to contend with them. When they have attained their full growth they become unwieldy, and at length nearly torpid; and it is then that the natives endeavour to exterminate them, with a view to prevent the females from depositing their countless eggs and leaving to the district a legacy of future devastation.