Spain is the only nation the Moors fear.  The reason is that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war and her loudest guns to astonish these Muslims, while America and other nations send only a little contemptible tub of a gunboat occasionally.  The Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see, not what they hear or read.  We have great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African ports.  The Moors have a small opinion of England, France, and America, and put their representatives to a deal of red-tape circumlocution before they grant them their common rights, let alone a favor.  But the moment the Spanish minister makes a demand, it is acceded to at once, whether it be just or not.

Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a disputed piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured the city of Tetouan.  She compromised on an augmentation of her territory, twenty million dollars’ indemnity in money, and peace.  And then she gave up the city.  But she never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten up all the cats.  They would not compromise as long as the cats held out.  Spaniards are very fond of cats.  On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as something sacred.  So the Spaniards touched them on a tender point that time.  Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred toward them in the breasts of the Moors, to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame and passionless.  Moors and Spaniards are foes forever now.  France had a minister here once who embittered the nation against him in the most innocent way.  He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tangier is full of them) and made a parlor carpet out of their hides.  He made his carpet in circles—­first a circle of old gray tomcats, with their tails all pointing toward the center; then a circle of yellow cats; next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones; then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a centerpiece of assorted kittens.  It was very beautiful, but the Moors curse his memory to this day.

When we went to call on our American Consul General today I noticed that all possible games for parlor amusement seemed to be represented on his center tables.  I thought that hinted at lonesomeness.  The idea was correct.  His is the only American family in Tangier.  There are many foreign consuls in this place, but much visiting is not indulged in.  Tangier is clear out of the world, and what is the use of visiting when people have nothing on earth to talk about?  There is none.  So each consul’s family stays at home chiefly and amuses itself as best it can.  Tangier is full of interest for one day, but after that it is a weary prison.  The Consul General has been here five years, and has got enough of it to do him for a century, and is going home shortly.  His family seize upon their letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them over and over again for two days or three, talk them over and