It was curious to observe that whenever literary knowledge was in request, whether for reading and fully understanding letters addressed to us in Arabic, or for the composition of letters to be addressed by us in the same language, the member of the expedition always most relied upon was Hamed, Ball’s personal attendant, one of the poor fellows engaged at Mogador to act in a menial capacity and accompany the expedition on foot. It is true of the western dialect spoken in Marocco, as well as of the purer Arabic of the east, that a familiar knowledge of the spoken tongue does not imply a full acquaintance with the written language, and Abraham was evidently sometimes at fault. Education, in a literary sense, is not among Moslems a privilege of rank or wealth, and is quite as often found among the poorest as with those above them. Our two Kaïds were both ostentatiously illiterate, and the soldiers knew no more than their officers; and poor Hamed, alone of all our suite, seemed to be worth taking into council on these occasions. Once more the insatiable rapacity of our escort gave us trouble, and proved to us that the objection to our making a long stay among these poor mountaineers was not an unreasonable one. We ascertained that the demands of these shameless fellows on their own behalf, apart from the rest of the expedition, rose to forty fowls a day, with bread, tea, and sugar in proportion, while they were constantly grumbling at the insufficiency of this allowance for ten persons, and demanding money from the natives in lieu of the other luxuries to which they thought themselves entitled. We sincerely regretted our want of power to put a stop to these abuses; but it was impossible to sacrifice the main object of our journey, and we merely resolved to acquaint El Graoui with the facts after our return to Mogador. We rose early on the morning of the 15th, and lost no time in preparing for our departure. Just when all seemed ready for a start a new and serious difficulty arose. Hooker and Maw had both provided for the journey several large tin cases painted green, and intended for the transport of living plants from Marocco to England; and, as a matter of course, some of these were amongst the luggage packed up for the expedition to Arround. When the sheik arrived about 7 A.M. he at once declared that he had undertaken to conduct us to Arround, but that to carry the luggage he saw prepared was utterly out of the question. A long and vehement controversy ensued; at first it was impossible to understand the real nature of the difficulty, and when this was gradually made clear, the objections seemed to us so incoherent and inconsistent that we suspected them to be mere pretexts to cover some unavowed obstacle in the sheik’s mind.