children dragging about fish-tails as
playthings at the doors; then a few rambling
prickly pear and angry aloes that stretched
their wild irritated arms as finger-posts, to
lead you to the rolling earth-heaps and
parched mule-tracks of the open country.
No green, spongey turf there: no gracious
sheltering trees: no. Nothing but mere
brickyard refuse and Saffron Hill burnt-up
lumber, and strips of white and brown road
padded to dust here and there by scuffling
mule-hoofs.

I do not know what diplomacy is not
necessary before we get our Ceuta passports.
There is much talking with Spanish semi-
official sponges, who hang about our doors, and
drop in by accident just at dinner-time. They
have no objection to cigars. They sip at our
claret, brag of their national services, and
of the governor's wisdom; and eventually, when
we are sick to death of officialism and officials,
bring us a sort of billet-order from the tardy
governor representing us as English officers on
a visit of inspection to the Ceuta garrison. It
gives us, if we like, a right to free quarters and
food, and is altogether so solemn, condescending,
and lying a document, that Ben-Hafiz,
our Arab captain, treats it as a sort of
Sultan's firman, and strikes his forehead and
breast with it, awfully, in true oriental
manner.

Thanks be to Allah, we are, at last, in the
zebec, The Young Man's Escape, just such a
bark boarded Robinson Crusoe's vessel off
Salee, and we are bound for Barbarie. An
occasion seized by Fluker to improvise a sort of
nautical comic song, which he sings to the
delight of the grinning crew by snatches, in
intervals of sea-sickness and note-taking:

"The white moon's flying fast, fast, fast,
     Over the white-capp'd sea,
The scud is running arrow-swift,
     And we're bound for Barbarie.

"Blue turbans watch us from the shore.
     Across the gold-green seas,
For we bring a crown of topaz stones
     For the Queen of Barbarie."

It was a throb and struggle of oars, that
spread out now like swallow's wings, now
like the legs of a centipede—a pull, a sway, a
lug at a rope, and we were on board the
zebec, where we soon, Fluker and I, took up
our quarters, near the immensely long handle
of the tiller, which, in true lazy Spanish
fashion, was managed by a rope, held by a
fat, bare-footed sailor, who steered sitting
down; which did not startle me, because I
remembered that the helmsman of the Seville
steamer, though a rogue "tough as nails," had
a sort of music-stool, to enable him to get
through his laborious work.

The passengers are poor soldiers, smooth,
brown-faced lads, going over with their
mothers and sisters to join the garrison at
Ceuta, and to furnish food for the Moorish
vultures. They wore little boat-shaped blue
caps with tassels, and dirty yellow jackets,
linen trousers, and hemp sandals (at least
those from Sancho Panza's La Mancha), on
their naked feet. Their knapsacks, made of
calf-skin, with the chestnut hair outside, lay
on the deck, with their tin pannakins for
cooking strapped to them. Their muskets
were, I observed, very rude and cumbrous.
As for the rest of the passengers, they were
mechanics, laden with mule harness, sacks of
loaves, and fruit, and shook down into their
places before the vessel had gone many
miles, subsiding at last into perfect sea-sick
Jonahs, who would have thanked you if
you had pitched them over to any passing
whale wanting a luncheon. The young
soldiers began by placing themselves in gay
and picturesque attitudes on the piles of
fruit-bags, laughing and making faces at the
poor women who sought refuge, covered up,
in sleep, from the rising nausea and giddiness,
as the vessel leaped and tripped over
the waves that divided Europe from Africa.
I, not despising, yet not much disturbed by
the pitch and toss of the boat, and the rise
and fall of the horizon (to which we seemed
to climb, only to drop from it directly) sat
and talked.

I and Fluker, indeed, to get out of the way
of the sailors—who were singing a ballad
about a certain Don Antonio in chorus to the
fat steersman with the merry greasy face and
Bashaw stomach just off duty at the tiller—
threw ourselves on the deck. Presently, the
captain, grand in his striped burnoose, joined
us, and lying down too (the song hushing,
out of respect to the captain), he began to
discourse on the wonders of Tetuan, of its
boar-hunts, locust-trees, torpedo fish, and customs.
"No ale and spirits sold here," said
he." The Prophet allows the Faithful no
such indulgences; no, not even ginger-beer
or shandy-gaff, or what you English call gin
and bittares."

"He knows all our little national peculiarities,
this captain," says Fluker, under-breath,
as he fathoms his coffee-coloured meerschaum
with his little finger.

"But then the Tetuan people allowed no
cheating in the caravanserais. He himself
(Ben-Hafiz) had been charged too much, and
had to complain to the Moorish governor,
who instantly sent two blacks to drag the
innkeeper to prison. There were no Tarifa
landlords there. Had I heard of the Tarifa
landlord, and what he said to the Duke of
Medina Coeli last June?"

"No."

"The Duke lost his way, out quail shooting,
and had to spend the night at the inn at
Tarifa. The next day, when the bill came
in the duke complained bitterly; and, by
Allah! I think the infidel was right, because
the Spanish rogue had charged him a dollar
a-piece for two eggs. 'Rascal,' he said,
'why, you can get eggs here, every day two
for a penny.'  'Yes,' said the fellow, grinning,