Immediately on landing I made my way to the post-office to despatch a telegram home announcing my arrival, and there I found two letters, which, having come overland, arrived in advance of me. One of them was from Wenman, telling me that he had called at Wimpole Street the morning after my departure and found all well at my house; and also enclosing a resolution of thanks and congratulation from my colleagues of the College of Surgeons in relation to my recent labors, which were said to be "memorable in the cause of humanity and science." The other letter was from my wife, a sweet, affectionate little note, cheerful yet tender, written on her return from Tilbury, hinting that the dear old house looked just a trifle empty and as if somehow it missed something, but that our boy was up and happy with a new toy that I had left for him as a consolation on his awakening--a great elephant that worked its trunk and roared. "I have just asked our darling," wrote my wife, "what message he would like to send you. 'Tell papa,' he answers, 'I'm all right, and Jumbo's all right, and is he all right, and will he come werry quick, and see him grunting?'" That night at the Calpe I had some further talk with the American. Young as he was he had been a great Eastern traveler. Egypt, Arabia, Syria, the Holy Land--he knew them all. For his forthcoming sojourn in Morocco he had prepared himself with elaborate care. The literature of travel in Barbary is voluminous, but he had gone through the best of it. With the faith of Islam he had long been familiar, and of the corrupt and tyrannical form of government of Mulai el Hassan and his kaids and kadis he had an intimate knowledge. He had even studied the language of the Moorish people--the Moroccan Arabic, which is a dialect of the language of the Koran--and so that he might hold intercourse with the Sephardic Jews also, who people the Mellahs of Morocco, he had mastered the Spanish language as well. This extensive equipment, sufficient to start a crusade or to make a revolution, was meant to do more than provide him with adventure. His intention was to see the country and its customs, to observe the manners of the people and the ordinances of their religion. "I shall get into the palaces and the prisons of the Kasbahs," he said; "yes, and the mosques and the saints' houses, and the harems also." Little as I knew then of the Moors and their country, I foresaw the dangers of such an enterprise, and I warned him against it. "You will get yourself into awkward corners," I said. "Yes," he said, "and I shall get myself out of them." I remembered his doctrine propounded on the ship, and I saw that he was a man of resolution, but I said, "Remember, you are going to the land of this people for amusement alone. It is not necessity that thrusts you upon their prejudice, their superstition, their fanaticism."