The afternoon was spent in receiving visitors, among whom was the admiral of Salee in a gorgeous Algerine costume. He is also captain of the port and pilot, and the representative of the first family of the empire, Muley Idris, its first founder, who is also one of the chief _living saints_. Four of this family are bound to compliment the Emperor on the Baïram; they had come for that purpose, carrying with them the offerings of the capital. Two of these accompanied the saint, and presented the strongest contrast that could be imagined with the fanatics from whose balls and daggers we had just before escaped. They were affable, curious, facile, and lively: they had never seen the sea before, and admired it like children. They explained their visit by saying they wanted to know what a Christian was like, never having seen one. When I told them about Leo Africanus and El Edressi, the geographers who on the fall of the dynasty had taken refuge in Sicily, where his history was written, they were exceedingly delighted. They invited me to Fez; and when I spoke of the difficulties of a Christian going there, they declared they would answer for me with their heads. They spend to-morrow in attendance on the Sultan; the day following they are to repeat their visit here. I must not omit another important personage, no less than the Sultan’s buffoon: this, indeed, is the third visit I have received from him, and each time he has carried away two or three bottles under his girdle, besides one in his sack. He has a good voice, and a wonderful stock of strange songs, and is an admirable mimic. I have heard him mingle together the muezzin chant, from the minaret, with the cries of a European vessel getting under weigh. He is a compound of the zany, mimic, minion, bard, and bacchanal. The strangeness of this people, instead of wearing off, increases with acquaintance--so much ease and facility at one moment, is followed by unexpected and unaccountable difficulties. The dramatic, not the speculative, man is strong in them. What can be more surprising, at this moment, than their total forgetfulness of the existence of France: how would it shock the pride of the victor to find that the defeated have already forgotten Isly and Mogadore! When I saw to-day the dense mass of the tens of thousands tranquilly performing their Baïram, I thought of the Greeks celebrating their Olympic games with the Persians at Thermopylæ.