Mr. Drummond Hay, our Consul at Tangier, advised me to return to Gibraltar, and to go by sea to Mogador, and thence to Morocco, where the Emperor was then residing.  Adopting his advice, I left the same evening for Gibraltar.  I took my passage in a very fine cutter, which had formerly been a yacht, and had since been engaged as a smuggler of Spanish goods.  I confess, I was not sorry to hear that the Spanish custom-house was often duped.  The cutter had been purchased for the Gibraltar secret service.

The Anti-Slavery Society had placed at my disposal a few yards of green cloth, for a present to the minister of the Emperor.  At the custom-house of Havre-de-Grace, I paid a heavy duty on it.  But, when I got to Irun, on the Spanish frontier, (having determined to come through Spain in order to see the country), the custom-house officers demanded a duty nearly double the cost of the cloth in London, so that there was no alternative but to leave it in their possession.  The only satisfaction, or revenge which I had, was that of calling them ladrones in the presence of a mob of people, who, to do justice to the Spanish populace, all took my part.

When I complained of this conduct at Madrid, my friends laughed at my simplicity, and told me I was “green” in Spanish; and in travelling through “the land of chivalry,” and of “ingeniosos hildagos,” ought, on the contrary, to thank God that I had arrived safe at Madrid with a dollar in my pocket; whilst they kindly hinted, if I should really get through the province of Andalusia safe to Cadiz, without being stripped of everything, I must record it in my journal as a miracle of good luck.  This was, however, exaggeration.  I had no reason to complain of anything else during the time I was in Spain.  My fellow travellers (all Spaniards), nevertheless, rebuked me for want of tact.  “You ought,” they said, “to have given a few pesetas to the guard of the diligencia, who would have taken charge of your cloth, and kept it from going through the custom-house.”

On reaching Gibraltar, I made the acquaintance of Frenerry, who for thirty years has been a merchant in Morocco.  Mr. Frenerry had frequent opportunities of personal intercourse with Muley Abd Errahman, and had more influence with him than the British Consul.  Indeed, at all times, a merchant is always more welcome to his Imperial Highness than a diplomatic agent, who usually is charged with some disagreeable mission.  Mr. Frenerry was called, par excellence, “the merchant of the West.”  Of course, Mr. Frenerry’s opinions must be valuable on Maroquine affairs.  He says:—­“The Morocco Moors like the English very much, and better than any other Europeans, for they know the English to be their best friends.  At the same time, the Moors feel their weakness.  They know also, that a day might come when the English would be against them, or have disputes with them, as in days past.  The Moors are, therefore, jealous of the English, though they consider them their friends; and do not like Englishmen more than any other Christians to travel in their country.  In other respects, if well managed and occasionally coaxed or bribed with a present, the Moors are very good natured, and as tractable as children.”