I was again very disappointed by the civilized, European way in which we ate. Instead of squatting cross-legged on the ground, eating with brotherly love out of the same dish with a wooden spoon or our fingers, we sat round a well-laid table, with knives and forks, and dinner-napkins embroidered with the Caid’s initials. Everyone and everything is getting so horribly civilized nowadays, I reflected, sadly. The repast began with a red-hot liquid in which vermicelli floated. It burnt my unaccustomed mouth and I did not fall in love with it, but as I had never tasted anything like it before I did not even want to refuse when the Caid offered me a second helping. After the soup came some boiled chicken, on which the red liquid had been poured. He helped me largely--twice. The third course was mutton, with prunes; the fourth mutton, with red liquid; the fifth a French _ragoût_, with an Arab taste; the sixth was chicken without the red liquid; the seventh an Irish stew gone wrong; the eighth--well, perhaps my readers are beginning to feel as tired as I did after having partaken twice of all these dishes. Indeed, I was beginning to feel very serious, and longed ardently for the end of this Gargantuan repast. After about the twelfth course an Arab in waiting cleared a space on the table before the Caid. My hopes were raised to the heights, but, alas! only to fall to the lowest depths in a very short space of time. Suddenly something knocked my hat on one side, and everyone yelled at me. Dazed, I looked round and rubbed my nose into a sheep’s leg. Starting back, I met the convulsed and, as I imagined, reproachful eye of an enormous sheep lying in a contorted attitude on a big brass platter. Si Benrajah turned to me with a gracious smile. “I am much honoured, madam,” he said, in perfect French, “in being the first to offer you a ‘meshui’ on your arrival in Algeria.” [Illustration: A TYPICAL ARAB HUT. [_From a Photograph._]] A “meshui,” I learnt, is a royal dish, and is only offered to those the Arabs delight (or are compelled) to honour. It is simply a whole sheep roasted over wood embers, and served uncut on a brass or silver platter. It should not be cut with a knife, but torn off with the fingers and eaten. If you wish to be particularly polite to a friend who is present, you wrench off a piece of flesh and present it with your greasy fingers, and he receives it much flattered, returning the compliment with _his_ greasy fingers. This style of eating was certainly not over-civilized, so I ought to have been better pleased than I was. As a matter of fact I felt very bad, and hoped against hope that the Caid would forget me. “You are not yet accustomed to our habits,” he said, kindly. “Take a knife and fork and cut off the meat.” So I cut off a few small bits in a dilatory way, secretly wondering if I could not surreptitiously throw them to some lean, hungry dogs who were peering into the tent door.