wheaten, or sometimes millet flour, cooked with butter, for which oil is occasionally substituted. To this is added mutton, lamb, or fowls, cut up into pieces, with various vegetables, either laid on the farinaceous substratum or mixed up with it. Numerous dishes succeeded each other, but they appeared to be all variations on the same gastronomic theme. The cookery on this occasion was better than we often found it; but the pervading flavour of rancid butter, long kept in great earthen pots, is repulsive to European stomachs, and few strangers are ever fortunate enough to be able to enjoy Moorish feasts. To some of us this was the first occasion for practising the art of eating with our fingers, and it was lucky that our host was not at hand to observe the awkwardness of our first essays. We improved somewhat with practice, but never could approach the dexterity and neatness with which the natives accomplish the operation, using only the fingers of the right hand. Conversation was completely drowned during dinner by the native music provided in compliment to the distinguished guests. Four men, squatting on the ground, struck the stretched metal strings of an instrument somewhat resembling a very rude Tyrolese _zither_, and kept up a constant chant or recitation in loud nasal tones, very different from the slow monotonous almost always melancholy songs of the Arabs in the East. These men, on the contrary, declaimed the words with unflagging energy, as though determined that the hearers should understand the story; and it was a moment of intense relief when at the end of dinner the deafening clang of strings and voices ceased. The fingers were again washed, green tea again served, courtesy requiring that each guest should take at least three cups, and then the Governor and his friends advanced and joined our party. Mr. Carstensen had asked permission to bring some wine for our use during dinner, and afterwards naturally took the occasion to invite the Moors present to take a share. With very slight show of reluctance, they accepted; and, though the quantity consumed was but trifling, the effect was unmistakable. The conversation became very lively, and jokes passed which excited peals of laughter, though most of them evaporated in the process of translation. One of the Moorish guests—Director of the Tobacco monopoly, as we were told—from the first struck us as a man of jovial temperament; and on him the extra glass or two of wine had a potent effect, the jollity culminating in an extemporised dance, reminding one of the dancing bears, once the delight of our youth, that have disappeared since the era of Zoological Gardens. The copious doses of green tea did not prevent some of the party from sleeping; while others sat up till near morning, engaged in the almost hopeless endeavour to get large piles of botanical paper thoroughly dry, before we finally started on our journey into the interior. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: See Appendix C.]