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the surf, hang on to her stern, yelling and shouting to the boatmen and passengers, and struggling among themselves for the vantage ground. The unhappy passengers are brought ashore one by one in the chair, or on the backs of the tallest and strongest of the Jews, in various conditions of fright, exhaustion, wrath, and excitement with regard to their property; which has been seized on promiscuously by the horde of noisy half-naked savages. They are scarcely on their feet on the beach when they are laid hold of by the touts, who also struggle with the porters for the possession of stray rugs, umbrellas, and bandboxes; by which they may endeavour to found a claim to the persons of the owners besides, and so bear them off in triumph to the hostelry which they represent. In the midst of the struggle a wave generally rushes in over everything, the feet and luggage of the new comers included, which causes another rush to higher and drier ground. The same scene is enacted with the second boat, which arrives while the contents, animate and inanimate, of the first is still being fought over; and also with the third; and so on, with as many as come. Many of the passengers are of course in parties, some members of whom may come in the first boat, some in the second, and others in the third. Under these circumstances, a heart-rending separation of families and an awkward division of property often appears inevitable. A husband, with his wife's bonnet-box, coming in the third boat, will be

seized upon by one party, while his wife and his portmanteau, landed from the second, are being struggled over by another, the nurse, the baby, and the tinbath, which came in the first boat, having been carried off by a different band. Elderly ladies get lost by their sons, children are seized shrieking from the arms of their mothers, and timid daughters are taken from under the very eyes of their fathers. Occasionally some resistance is made by the victims. A young Briton will use his fists for the recovery of his mother or his valise, and an enraged parent will turn his umbrella, if he has fortunately retained or recovered it, into a weapon of offence to good purpose. But the best fight I ever saw made was by a waiting-woman, who soundly thumped a big Moor, who had snatched her bandbox and her mistress's dressing-case from her; until he was fain to drop his booty and make off, with maledictions on the head of his spirited opponent.

Parties and properties being at length collected, the wrangle for payment with the boat and chair men ensues. It gives rise to an awful amount of screaming, shouting, foot-stamping, and fist-shaking; and is generally settled by the travellers, if new to Tangier, paying half what is demanded of them, and four times what is justly due. Then the luggage is carried up to the gate, where it is inspected by the officials; another trying ordeal. This concluded, the new arrivals proceed to the different hotels, escorted by the touts and guides belonging to

these establishments, and preceded each by a long file of porters carrying the luggage. According to Tangier rules, the smallest article requires a separate man to carry it. Arrived at the hotel, all the luggage is flung down in the patio, and then arises another altercation with regard to payment for this service. Three people with a moderate amount of luggage will have from fifteen to twenty Sons of the Prophet and Children of Israel clamouring for remuneration. All the employés of the hotel, male and female, crowd about, and occasionally joining in the controversy, add to the liveliness of this first scene in Tangier life.

CHAPTER IX.

THE UNITED NATIONAL HOTEL.

THE weather for some time after my arrival in Tangier was very wet; and that, and other circumstances connected with my visit, confined me a good deal indoors during the earlier part of my stay. But even within the precincts of the hotel there was a good deal that was novel and interesting; and, I thought, worth observing. More especially in the system of its management, which was quite unlike anything I had ever before experienced. The house was built in the Moorish style,-square, inclosing the patio, which was completely unroofed, and open to the sky. to the sky. The patio was floored with squares of black and white marble, and was in size disproportionately large to the rooms which ran round

it. There was no fig-tree in this patio to afford shelter, so that when it rained the visitors at the hotel had to hold up umbrellas, and when it rained very hard, to put on waterproofs, in crossing the patio to get to the salle à manger for meals. As the rain lodged in the marble pavement too, goloshes were in request on these occasions. The salle à manger was on the ground floor, with the kitchen, pantries, and the landlady's bedroom. There was but one upper story, and here was the saloon, an apartment about ten feet

square, and three bedrooms. This was all the accommodation the house afforded. The rooms were all whitewashed and floored with red tiles, and had each one very small window. These latter, however, the landlady had put in at her own expense; and it was part of her agreement with her Moorish landlord, that when she left she was to build them up again. Some of the doors could only be fastened from the inside, some only from the outside, and some could not be fastened at all.

The domestic arrangements of the United National Hotel, were of an exceedingly primitive and original character. From the above description of the premises, it will be seen that the accommodation for visitors was very limited in its extent, consisting as it did of only three bedrooms. To in some measure remedy this defect, a partition had been run up across one of the rooms to divide it into two. This partition was formed of planks of wood, not covered in any way; and to secure ventilation-I suppose-a slight space was left between each plank. There had originally been many knots in the planks; but these had all been pushed out, either by the ingenious architect, to secure further ventilation, or by travellers curious as to the proceedings of their neighbours in the next The apartment had originally had a folding door, one side of which was now made to do duty for one room, and the other side for the other. The

room.

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