Part 8 (2/2)

dick

GIBRALTAR

February 23rd, 1893

DEAR MOTHER:

Aeneas who ”ran the round of so hborhood was a stationary stay at hoet away froreatest possible experience

I ca to stay a week and to write ier quietly and peacefully like a gentleo on to Malta I love this place and there is so to do and see every minute of the time but what happened was this: All the boats that ever left here stopped running, broke shafts, or went into quarantine or just sailed by, and unless I want to spend teeks on the sea in order to have one at Malta, which is only a o off to-morroith my articles unwritten, my photos undeveloped and et to Algiers by changing twice fro the coast of Spain It will be a great nuisance but I shall be able to see Algiers and Tunis and Malta in the three weeks which would have otherwise been given to Malta alone And Tunis I aram from Spain about the boats, I shall tell you what I have been doing Everybody was glad to see ier I dined with the Governor on Monday, in a fine large room lined with portraits of all the old cos and the Governor's daughter danced a Spanish dance for us after it was over Miss Buckle, Cust's fiancee, dances alirls here learn it as other girls do the piano On Tuesday Cust and Miss B and another girl and I went over into Spain to see the meet and we had a short run after a fox ent to earth, much to my relief, in about three minutes and before I had been thrown off There are no fences but the ground is one lish go with an ease that makes me tremble with ad quite soaked through and very hungry, went to an inn and it was such an inn as Don Quixote used to stop at, with the dining-room over the stable and a lot of drunkenwomen to wait on us It is a beautiful country Spain, with every sort of green you ever dreaot warain, so we stopped at the guard house on the outside of the rock and took tea with the officer in charge and we all got down on our knees around his fire and he hobbled around dropping his eyeglasses in his hot water and very ly e on all the unifor ladies drank tea and thawed This is the most various place I ever came across You have mountains and seashore and allamandas like Monte Carlo in their tropical beauty and soldiers day and nightbrass bands and tennis and guns firing so as to rattle all the s, and picnics and teas I aet off toave a luncheon because it struck me as the oodat first, but I told hio to his dinner he could come to my lunch, so that, or the fact that the beautiful Miss Buckle was co decided him to waive etiquette and he cairls cas and a portrait of Washi+ngton and of the Queen and I ransacked the markets for violets and banked them all up in the middle It was fine I turned the hotel upside down and all the servants wore their best livery and everybody stood up in a row and saluted His Excellency and I made a speech and so did his Excellency and the chef did hi Helen Benedict could not have done it better

I had a funny adventure the ood deal of talk about Field (confound hi into the prison and The Herald and Times correspondents were rather blue about it and solish residents said that I had not been shown the whole of the prison, that the worst had been kept froot into the prison because I had worked at it two days, said there was an additional ward I had not seen I went back into this while he and the guard were getting the door open to go out and saw nothing, but to make sure that the prison was as I believed an absolute square, I went back on theof my departure and cliraphed the top of the prison Then a horrible doubt ca and which adjoined the prison lish residents hinted There was an old wo up and down and to whouide around to ask her as the nature of the building upon which I had trespassed and which seemed to worry her so much-- He came back to tell ht I was getting up a flirtation with the gentleain

It will be a couple of months at least before e of thee of the Western stories, the material is hts that I have not the patience or the leisure I had in the West-- Then there were days in which writing was a relief, now there is so much to see that it seerace of Providence I cannot leave here until the 28th, oing direct to Malta and then to Tunis, leaving Algiers which I did not want to see out of it-Hurrah I shall now return to the cal notes which Chas will enjoy

dick

GIBRALTAR--February 1893

DEAR MOTHER:

Morocco as it is is a very fine place spoiled by civilization Not nice civilization but the dregs of it, the broken down nobleland and the R---- L----'s of A to maintain what is best in the place or to help what is worst I love the Moors and the way they hate the Christian and the scorn and pride they show They seen conquests about the and self-respecting The color is very beautiful, but the foreign eleo inland but I shall not because I oes inland froreat uns and three pistols three feet long and a Moorish costuuide's idea of pleasing s down curses on radually becoet three pounds of copper for a franc and it lasts all day throwing it right and left all the ti to pay a snake charmer all he wanted and then when he protested I took one of the snakes out of his hands and swung it around ht of the people I wanted to show him he was a fakir to want e snake about four feet long Thenin the principal street in the city standing up on their hind legs and boxing like ot mine out of the way and was trod on and had my aruide whether I was Alish So with the lower classes Ia social success

dick

Off Malta--March 1, 1893

DEAR MOTHER:

I have been having a delightful voyage with ht most of the time and before thatbeautiful mountains in Spain covered with snow and red in the sunset There were a lot of nice English people going out to India to meet their husbands and we have ”tiffin” and ”choota” and ”curry,”

so it really see like Coney Island I play ga a story which is very hard to pretend as I never read in my rooms and then I look up and exclai that has impressed me most is how absolutely so around it You and Nora MUST take this trip; as for me I think Willie Chanler is the most sensible individual I have yetSoloreat mountains and this I e to o Which, seriously, I will not do; only it is disappointing to find the earth so so on where it is older, and new The worst of it is that it is hard leaving all the nice people youladies and Capt Buckle and Cust cahtof Gib, an official one which I had to sreat show of secrecy and now I shall be sorry to leave these people Just as I wrote that one of the officers going out to join his regiers were getting up a round robin askingthe above lots of things have happened I bid farewell to everyone at Malta and yet in four hours I was back again bag and baggage and am now on my way to Cairo Tunis and the Bey are ih I could go to Tunis I could not go aithout being quarantined for ten days and if I reypt against a week of Malta I could not do it so I put back to this steaain and here I am Tomorroe reach Brindisi and we have already passed Sicily and had a glimpse of the toe of Italy and it is the coldest sunny Italy that I ever iined I a people in Cairo only subalterns but I shall probably get along I always e soratifying to aroo dance and the Captain wept and all the stewards stood in a line and grinned

I sing Chevalier's songs and they all sit in the dining rooht some of the Royal Berkshi+re ho the Old Kent Road were on the point of Mutiny and refused to return to barracks

Great is the Power of Chevalier and great is his power for taking you back to London with three opening bars Malta was the queerest place I ever got into It was like a city, country and island er cheese with holes in it You sailed right up to the front door as it were and people were hanging out of the s s down on the deck as co an ocean steamer in the yard was as much a matter of course as a perambulator There were also wo ago the ladies of Malta got themselves talked about I was on shore about five hours and saw soe I can make a third letter but Tunis is writ on urated and I took all the passengers down at the proper tireat ave them each an American cocktail to rereat speech maker and if there are any more anniversaries in America I shall be a second Depew