sitting at the gate of the city, and on into the country. About a half mile from the city gates we came to a walled inclosure with a plain, unpretentious door. We knocked upon this and it was opened by Negro slaves, who took charge of our mules. Passing in through a sort of porter's lodge, where a half-dozen other slaves were sitting, we found ourselves in a great court or park surrounded by Moorish buildings, the rooms of which looked out upon it. This park was made up largely of gardens filled with beautiful flowers and semi-tropical plants and trees. One section of it contained a tennis court with a cement floor as smooth as marble, where the ex-minister delights to play tennis with his European friends. There is a central path through the gardens down which we walked until we came into two great reception rooms, where the war minister receives his men friends. Passing through the first set of parlours, which are floored with mosaic and luxuriously furnished, we came into a large room walled with glass looking out upon the Atlantic Ocean. The house is built on a high bluff overhanging the sea and the mountains of Spain were in plain sight across the waves. We could hear the surf roar as it dashed itself against the rocks below.

At the entrance to this room stood two tall clocks of the kind that sell in the United States for five hundred dollars apiece and play chimes at the striking of the hours. The tiled floor was covered with oriental rugs, the great divans were upholstered in rich red Morocco leather, while about the walls were cases containing rare china, swords, rifles, and other weapons, inlaid with gold and silver. The surroundings were those of a man of taste, and this was my impression of the ex-minister when he appeared.

Si el-Mehdi el-Menehbi is a typical Moor of the better class and of a kind one does not expect to find in what is generally known as one of the black spots of this black continent. He would make one of the handsomest Othellos who ever trod the stage. He is tall, straight, and fine looking, his Moorish costume making him look even taller than he actually is. He has a light complexion and, like all Moorish men, wears a full beard, his whiskers being brown and curly and as fine as spun silk. A broad forehead with large hazel eyes may be seen below his white turban. His nose is straight and his cheek bones are high. His costume consisted of a long white woollen gown, or burnouse, with a hood at the back, and sleeves so wide that they showed his forearms to the elbows. The skin was as white as yours or mine. As we watched, he now and then smiled, showing a good set of strong teeth, and he twice perceptibly yawned.

In the course of my brief interview with him, I asked Mr. Menehbi whether his people made good soldiers.

"Both the Berbers and Moors are brave to an excess," he replied. "They have excellent fighting stuff in them, and if the time comes when the tribes can be organized and welded together, an army of a hundred thousand men could be raised. As it is now, each tribe furnishes a certain quota of mounted men and these altogether make up the army. One large clan may furnish two thousand soldiers, a second a regiment, and a third only a company. Such soldiers are officered by the tribal chiefs, who are subordinate to the general of the Sultan. There are so many quarrels among the different divisions that it is difficult to harmonize and organize them. They are always warring among themselves, and it would be only

through religious feeling that they could be formed into a compact army organization."

In closing our conversation, I asked Mr. Menehbi to send, through me, a few words of greeting to the American people, saying, "Your Excellency is about the most progressive man in Morocco, and I should like to take from you a word of greeting to what we consider the most progressive nation of the Western world."

The Sultan's ex-war minister smiled at this. His face, however, soon grew serious, and he said:

"I have a great admiration for you Americans, and I hope I shall be able to cross the Atlantic to visit you. The only message I have for you is that you should study this country, and cultivate closer trade relations with it. We have here some six million inhabitants, and we are now large consumers of cottons and other things which Americans make. Our homes are lighted chiefly by American petroleum, and our people wear clothes made of stuff grown by you. Your raw cotton, however, goes to England; and the English do the weaving and sell us the goods. I understand that you have cotton mills of your own. Why not make the goods yourselves and get all the profit? We Moroccans are friendly to you, and we would be glad to trade with you; but as it is our chief supplies come from the various countries of Europe, mostly from England, Spain, Germany, and France."

CHAPTER VI

IN SPANISH AFRICA

AM in what is about the last of Spain's colonial possessions. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries she owned the best part of the New World. If we include the Louisiana Purchase, which we bought from France after Spain had let it slip through her fingers, she had the cream of North America. She had almost the whole of South America excepting Brazil. The best of the West Indies were hers. Cortez poured the treasures of Montezuma into her royal coffers, and Pizarro, shoeing his horses with solid silver, robbed the Incas of Peru and sent gold-freighted galleons sailing across to his Spanish sovereign. The Philippines added to these sources of wealth, and for a long time two great golden streams rolled across the Atlantic and the Pacific to Spain's treasure chests. In her colonial possessions she was then the richest of all the Powers. To-day by mismanagement and oppression she has become the poorest, and since her war with us, when she lost Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, there have been "none so poor to do her reverence.'

Indeed, all the land which Spain has left outside her own boundaries is in Africa, and even here her territories are the ragtag and bobtail of the continent. They cover a bit over a hundred thousand square miles but are largely desert sand or fever swamps, and the tillable lands