Again we have been alarmed by the accounts of R. The doctor who attended him reports that he had a brain fever, which finished off in typhus, brought on, as doctor said, by over-anxiety and work in relieving the famished people. He was, thank God, on the 23rd convalescent: fever had left him very weak, and he is ordered to proceed to Tangier as soon as his strength will permit him to move. . . .

The Italian Vice-Consul at Mogador died of typhoid, the French Consul was at death’s door. Poor Kaid Maclean is in a dangerous state at Marákesh. Several Europeans at the ports have died of typhoid.

The atmosphere is poisoned by the famished people and bodies buried a few inches below the surface or even left exposed.

We have sent off the poor, with aid from here, and as I happen to be President of the Board this month, I am attending to hygienic measures, and hope thereby to ward off the dread disease from this town.

A curious incident connected with this time of anxiety was recorded by Sir John. It is related here as printed in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research[57]:—

In the year 1879 my son Robert Drummond Hay resided at Mogador with his family, where he was at that time Consul. It was in the month of February. I had lately received good accounts of my son and his family; I was also in perfect health. About 1 a.m. (I forget the exact day in February), whilst sleeping soundly [at Tangier], I was woke by hearing distinctly the voice of my daughter-in-law, who was with her husband at Mogador, saying in a clear but distressed tone of voice, ‘Oh, I wish papa only knew that Robert is ill.’ There was a night-lamp in the room. I sat up and listened, looking around the room, but there was no one except my wife, sleeping quietly in bed. I listened for some seconds, expecting to hear footsteps outside, but complete stillness prevailed, so I lay down again, thanking God that the voice which woke me was an hallucination. I had hardly closed my eyes when I heard the same voice and words, upon which I woke Lady Drummond Hay and told her what had occurred, and I got up and went into my study, adjoining the bedroom, and noted it in my diary. Next morning I related what had happened to my daughter, saying that though I did not believe in dreams I felt anxious for tidings from Mogador. That port, as you will see in the map, is about 300 miles South of Tangier. A few days after this incident a letter arrived from my daughter-in-law, Mrs. R. Drummond Hay, telling us that my son was seriously ill with typhoid fever and mentioning the night during which he had been delirious. Much struck by the coincidence that it was the same night I had heard her voice, I wrote to tell her what had happened. She replied, the following post, that in her distress at seeing her husband so dangerously ill, and from being alone in a distant land, she had made use of the precise words which had startled me from sleep, and had repeated them. As it may be of interest for you to receive a corroboration of what I have related, from the persons I have mentioned, who happen to be with me at this date, they also sign, to affirm the accuracy of all I have related.

When I resigned, in 1886, I destroyed, unfortunately, a number of my diaries and amongst them that of 1879, or I should have been able to state the day, and might have sent you the leaf on which I noted the incident.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THIRD MISSION TO FAS. 1879-1880.

In the autumn of 1879 Sir John writes, ‘State of Morocco better, but the Government is such a wretched one that I am always finding the stone I had rolled up, back again at the bottom! A vigorous tyrant would be preferable to our good, well-meaning Sultan.’