“Vive la France, Vive la Guadeloupe,” said the black, with a good French accent.  “In France and in Guadeloupe there is no superstition, and they pay as much regard to the Bible as to the Koran; I am now learning to read in order that I may understand the writings of Voltaire, who, as I am told, has proved that both the one and the other were written with the sole intention of deceiving mankind.  O vive la France! where will you find such an enlightened country as France; and where will you find such a plentiful country as France?  Only one in the world, and that is Guadeloupe.  Is it not so, Monsieur Pascual?  Were you ever at Marseilles?  Ah quel bon pays est celui-la pour les vivres, pour les petits poulets, pour les poulardes, pour les perdrix, pour les perdreaux, pour les alouettes, pour les becasses, pour les becassines, enfin, pour tout.”

“Pray, sir, are you a cook?” demanded I.

“Monsieur, je le suis pour vous rendre service, mon nom c’est Gerard, et j’ai l’honneur d’etre chef de cuisine chez monsieur le consul Hollandois.  A present je prie permission de vous saluer; il faut que j’aille a la maison pour faire le diner de mon maitre.”

At four I went to dine with the British consul.  Two other English gentlemen were present, who had arrived at Tangier from Gibraltar about ten days previously for a short excursion, and were now detained longer than they wished by the Levant wind.  They had already visited the principal towns in Spain, and proposed spending the winter either at Cadiz or Seville.  One of them, Mr. -, struck me as being one of the most remarkable men I had ever conversed with; he travelled not for diversion nor instigated by curiosity, but merely with the hope of doing spiritual good, chiefly by conversation.  The consul soon asked me what I thought of the Moors and their country.  I told him that what I had hitherto seen of both highly pleased me.  He said that were I to live amongst them ten years, as he had done, he believed I should entertain a very different opinion; that no people in the world were more false and cruel; that their government was one of the vilest description, with which it was next to an impossibility for any foreign power to hold amicable relations, as it invariably acted with bad faith, and set at nought the most solemn treaties.  That British property and interests were every day subjected to ruin and spoliation, and British subjects exposed to unheard-of vexations, without the slightest hope of redress being afforded, save recourse was had to force, the only argument to which the Moors were accessible.  He added, that towards the end of the preceding year an atrocious murder had been perpetrated in Tangier:  a Genoese family of three individuals had perished, all of whom were British subjects, and entitled to the protection of the British flag.  The murderers were known, and the principal one was even now in prison for the fact, yet all attempts to bring him to condign punishment