But on another day I had a curious experience at this same custom-house. A new kodak having followed me from London was held for duty, which should be, according to treaty, ten per cent. _ad valorem_. It was in no good humour that after an hour’s wrangling I was finally led into a room with a long rough table at the back and four spectacled, grey-bearded Moors in white _kaftans_ and turbans seated behind. ‘How much?’ I asked and a Frenchman translated. ‘Four dollars,’ came the reply. ‘The thing is only worth four pounds twenty dollars; I’ll give you one dollar.’ ‘Make it three--three dollars, Hassani.’ ‘No, one.’ ‘Make it two--two dollars Spanish.’ This being the right tax, I paid. But I was not to get my goods yet; what was my name? [Illustration: TANGIER THROUGH THE KASBAH GATE.] ‘Moore.’ ‘No, _your_ name.’ ‘I presented my card.’ ‘Moore!’ A laugh went down the turbaned line. A writer on the East has said of the Moors that they are the Puritans of Islam, and the first glimpse of Morocco will attest the truth of this. Not a Moor has laid aside the _jeleba_ and the corresponding headgear, turban or fez. In the streets of Tangier--of all Moorish towns the most ‘contaminated’ with Christians--there is not a tramway or a hackney cab. Not a railway penetrates the country anywhere, not a telegraph, nor is there a postal service. Except for the discredited Sultan (whose ways have precipitated the disruption of the Empire) not a Moor has tried the improvements of Europe. It seems extraordinary that such a country should be the ‘Farthest West of Islam’ and should face the Rock of Gibraltar. CHAPTER II NIGHTS ON A ROOF I did not stop long on this occasion at Tangier, because, from a newspaper point of view, Casablanca was a place of more immediate interest. The night before I sailed there arrived an old Harvard friend travelling for pleasure, and he proposed to accompany me. Johnny Weare was a young man to all appearances accustomed to good living, and friends of an evening--easy to acquire at Tangier--advised him to take a supply of food. But I unwisely protested and dissuaded John, and we went down laden with little unnecessary luggage, travelling by a French torpedo-boat conveying despatches.