OFFICIAL VISITS, 211 hospitality, in a manner worthy of my supposed rank. The tent was put in order, and I arranged a divan on one side, made of my carpet, mattress and capote. The two lanternpoles, bound together, formed a mast, which I planted at the door, and then run up the American flag. The preparations were scarcely completed before the Bey appeared, galloping up on a superb, jet-black stallion, with half a dozen officers in attendance. As he dismounted, I advanced to receive him.

According to Arab etiquette, the highest in rank enters first, and true to Achmet's prediction, the Bey, after taking my hand, requested me to precede him. I declined, out of courtesy to him, and after a polite controversy on the subject, he passed his arm affectionately around my waist, and we went in side by side. Achmet had excellent coffee and sherbet in readiness, but the Bey preferred my cigars to the shebook.

As he sat beside me on the divan, I thought I had rarely seen a nobler countenance. He had an unusually clear, large hazel eye, a long but not prominent nose, and the lines of fifty years had softened and subdued an expression which may have been fierce and fearless in his younger days. He was from a village near Parga, in Albania, and was delighted when I told him that not long previous, I had sailed past the shores of his native land.

He had no sooner taken his leave than the Civil Governor, ad interim, Mustapha Kashif, arrived, attended by his chief secretary, Mahmoud Effendi. Mustapha was an Anatolian, small in stature and quite withered and wasted by the torrid climate of Berber. His skin had a dark unhealthy hue, and his eyes a filmy glare, which I attributed to other causes than the diseased liver of which he complained. He immediately