Good old Driss; both Weare and I became very fond of him. In a day he spoke of himself as our friend, and I believe we could have trusted him in hard emergencies. He was brave and not unduly cautious, though occasionally, when we would stop in a road and gather a crowd, he would say imperatively: ‘Come away, Mr. Weare and Mr. Moore; some fanatic may be in that crowd and stick you with his dagger. Come on, come on!--I’m your friend; I don’t want see you dead.’ Driss had vanities. He told us his age, twenty-three, and told us in the same breath that few Moors knew exactly how old they were. He said his wife--who was only twenty--could read and write a little, informing us at the same time that very few women could read. He told us that his wife was almost white. Driss was ashamed of his own colour, and when a French correspondent asked in his presence if he was a slave, the poor boy coloured and dropped his head. He had certainly been born of a slave. Still there was nothing humble about Driss. Among his people he was exceptional and he enjoyed the distinction. He was a Ziada man; he could read and write; he could make more money than his fellows--and he hoped some day to acquire European protection; he was fine-looking, tall, strong, and without disease. Driss was a thoroughly clean fellow. He never touched bread without washing his hands, a custom prevailing among some Moslems but not general with the Moors. This with him seemed only a matter of habit and desire of decency, for he was not particularly devout in his religion. ‘But you think,’ we said, ‘that all _Nasrani_ are unclean.’ At first Driss denied this, out of consideration for us, but on being pressed he admitted that it was the feeling of the ignorant of his race that, like pigs, all Christians were filthy in person as well as soul. We discussed with him the great moral vice of Mohammedan countries, and he admitted that it was prevalent in Morocco no less than, as we told him, it prevailed farther east, and that it affected all classes. He told me that it was the custom of the wealthy father of the better class of Moors, in order to protect his sons, to make them each a present of a slave girl as they attain the age of fifteen or sixteen. Of course, from the Mohammedan point of view, there is nothing immoral in this; indeed the mothers of sons often advocate it.