standing would do? Why stand, when sitting is so much less fatiguing?
Why sit, when lying down gives so much more rest? And why, lying down,
keep your eyes open?"

In truth, this is a country in which things are left pretty much to
look after themselves. Nothing is done that can be left undone, and
everything is postponed until "to-morrow." Slipper-slapper go the
people, and slipper-slapper goes their policy. If you can get through
a duty by only half doing it, by all means do so, is the generally
accepted rule of life. In anything you have done for you by a Moor,
you are almost sure to discover that he has "scamped" some part;
perhaps the most important. This, of course, means doing a good
deal yourself, if you like things done well, a maxim holding good
everywhere, indeed, but especially here.

The Moorish Government's way of doing things--or rather, of not doing
them if it can find an excuse--is eminently slip-shod. The only point
in which they show themselves astute is in seeing that their Rubicon
has a safe bridge by which they may retreat, if that suits their plans
after crossing it. To deceive the enemy they hide this as best
they can, for the most part successfully, causing the greatest
consternation in the opposite camp, which, at the moment when it
thinks it has driven them into a corner, sees their ranks gradually
thinning from behind, dribbling away by an outlet hitherto invisible.
Thus, in accepting a Moor's promise, one must always consider the
conditions or rider annexed.

This can be well illustrated by the reluctant permission to transport
grain from one Moorish port to another, granted from time to time,
but so hampered by restrictions as to be only available to a few, the