The Argosy — page 234: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Cruse of the Reserve Squadron. 215 begun. I was about to have charge of two invalids in a foreign country, amidst an unknown tongue. Yet I, as sensitive as anyone about smells, and with about as much strength in my whole body as they had in their little fingers, happily remained unaffected. The back is fitted to the burden. Had we all three succumbed, I am per- suaded that a melancholy cortége, consisting of three corpses, would have returned to the Royal Reserve Squadron. The boatmen shouldered our small amount of luggage, and we followed them more leisurely up hill, under the broiling sun. In the narrow thoroughfare we met a few straggling Moors wrapped in their gehabs or abbas. ‘Turning a sharp corner, and passing down to the left, we came full tilt upon two Moors and a mule quarrelling at the very height of their voices, gesticulating, raving, ready to tear each other’s eyes out. The men were behaving in this manner, not the mule. The animal was patiently listening, and under .any circum- stances would have known better. We, too, were obliged to stand and listen, for mule and belligerents between them blocked up the entire gangway, paying no more attention to us than if we had been phantoms. There came a moment when they seemed about to fly at each other’s throats; dark, lusty, powerful men, with swarthy complexions and flashing glances, and faces heated with passion ; strong enough and determined enough, apparently, to knock down the very walls against which one of them was leaning. “What are they quarrelling about?” one of us asked of Wiley. “One man says he has paid the other man some money: the other man says he hasn’t,” replied Wiley. ‘‘The one who says the money hasn’t been paid declares he will keep the other man’s mule until he does pay him. A Moor would as soon part with his life as with his mule, you know, sir. In a few minutes they’ll pull each other’s beards, and the mule, between them, will come in for some rough handling.” We did not stay for the last act of this lively drama. Slipping past the combatants, when a closer proximity to each other-—though not inspired by the tender chords of affection—left an opening in the way, we soon after reached the hotel. Mr. Jago and Broadley sank into chairs. ‘Are these smells indigenous to Tangiers?” asked Mr. Jago, in feeble tones. ‘‘ Bless you, sir, they are,” replied the landlord, “if by indigenous you mean customary. Why, sir, Tangiers would be nothing without its smells. It would lose half its reputation.” ‘““There’s such a thing as a bad reputation,” mildly protested Broadley, in a voice that seemed to come from underground. “Quite true, sir,” returned the landlord; ‘but these smells, I assure you, are wholesome; there’s nothing bad about them. You may go amongst them with impunity.” Cconniclooolks (CO)