In the days that precede departure--and in Morocco they are always apt to
be numerous--I seek to enter into the life of Djedida. Sometimes we stroll
to the custom-house, where grave and dignified Moors sit in the bare,
barnlike office that opens upon the waste ground beyond the port. There
they deliver my shot guns after long and dubious scrutiny of the order
from the British Consulate at Tangier. They also pass certain boxes of
stores upon production of a certificate testifying that they paid duty on
arrival at the Diplomatic Capital. These matters, trivial enough to the
Western mind, are of weight and moment here, not to be settled lightly or
without much consultation.
Rotting in the stores of this same custom-house are two grand pianos and
an electric omnibus. The Sultan ordered them, the country paid for
them,--so much was achieved by the commercial energy of the infidel,--and
native energy sufficed to land them; it was exhausted by the effort. If
Mulai Abd-el-Aziz wants his dearly purchased treasure, the ordering and
existence of which he has probably forgotten, he must come to Mazagan for
it, I am afraid, and unless he makes haste it will not be worth much.
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