Our stay on this occasion was short, and soon after dark we were again in motion. We spent pleasantly enough our last evening on board the _Vérité_. Though he took little pains to conceal his strong prejudices against the English nation, our captain was thoroughly good-natured and obliging towards the individual Englishmen with whom he was associated. No doubt our scientific pursuits recommended us to his good offices, for the slight smattering of scientific knowledge acquired by half-educated persons in most Continental countries has the effect of awakening some interest in such pursuits. It may, indeed, be doubted whether, at least in France, the teaching of physical science goes far enough to convey any accurate knowledge, even of an elementary kind; but, at all events, the national temperament leads Frenchmen to expose their deficiencies more than other people readily do. An Englishman who knows that he is not well grounded in a subject holds his tongue, or if pressed by questions will probably exaggerate the extent of his own ignorance, where a Frenchman will gaily lay down the law and span over the gaps in his knowledge by startling bridges of conjecture. Our worthy skipper amused us not a little when, in conversation on the climate of this coast, reference being made to the rainless zone of the Peruvian coast, he explained that in that country the moisture of the air is absorbed by the gases that accompany earthquakes, thus accounting to his own satisfaction for the meteorological phenomenon. But the full vehemence of his nature was reserved for matters of much more immediate interest. He had left Marseilles after the Communist rising in that city had been suppressed, but while the miserable tragic farce that was to end in the horrors of May, 1871, was being enacted in Paris. He could not allude to the subject without a degree of fury that to us seemed utterly unreasonable. But it is easy for people at a distance to treat such matters with calmness, and there were not many Englishmen on the spot who at the time were able to share the noble calmness of Lord Canning during the Indian Mutiny. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Some fine specimens have been exhibited at the South Kensington Museum, by our companion, Mr. Maw.] [Footnote 2: Professor Tyndall has shown that the differences of tint in seawater depend upon differences in the amount and dimensions of the particles of solid matter held in suspension; but the abruptness of the transition from one tint to another has, we believe, not been fully explained.] [Footnote 3: ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,’ vol. i., pp. 132-151.] CHAPTER IV. Arrival at Mogador — The Sultan’s letter — Preparations for our journey — The town of Mogador — The neighbouring country — Ravages of locusts — Native races of South Marocco — Excursion to the island — Climate of Mogador — Its influence on consumption — Dinner with the Governor.