We have rounded the north-west corner of Africa, exchanged farewell signals with our friend on Lloyd’s station,—­who must now return to his Spanish and Arabic or live a silent life,—­and I have taken a last look through field-glasses at the plateau that held our little camp.  Since then we have raced the light for a glimpse of El Araish, where the Gardens of the Hesperides were set by people of old time.  The sun was too swift in its decline; one caught little more than an outline of the white city, with the minarets of its mosques that seemed to pierce the sky, and flags flying in the breeze on the flat roofs of its Consuls’ houses.  The river Lekkus showed up whitely on the eastern side, a rising wind having whipped its waters into foam, and driven the light coasting vessels out to sea.  So much I saw from the good ship Zweena’s upper deck, and then evening fell, as though to hide from me the secret of the gardens where the Golden Apples grew.

Alas, that modern knowledge should have destroyed all faith in old legend!  The fabled fruits of the Hesperides turn to oranges in the hands of our wise men, the death-dealing dragon becomes Wad Lekkus itself, so ready even to-day to snarl and roar at the bidding of the wind that comes up out of the south-west, and the dusky maidens of surpassing loveliness are no more than simple Berber girls, who, whilst doubtless dusky, and possibly maidenly as ever, have not inherited much of the storied beauty of their forbears.  In spite of this modern perversion of the old tale I find that the oranges of the dining-table have a quite rare charm for me to-night,—­such an attraction as they have had hitherto only when I have picked them in the gardens of Andalusia, or in the groves that perfume the ancient town of Jaffa at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean.  Now I have one more impression to cherish, and the scent of a blossoming orange tree will recall for me El Araish as I saw it at the moment when the shroud of evening made the mosques and the kasbah of Mulai al Yazeed melt, with the great white spaces between them, into a blurred pearly mass without salient feature.

[Illustration:  MOORISH HOUSE, CAPE SPARTEL]

You shall still enjoy the sense of being in touch with past times and forgotten people, if you will walk the deck of a ship late at night.  Your fellow-passengers are abed, the watch, if watch there be, is invisible, the steady throbbing movement of the screw resolves itself into a pleasing rhythmic melody.  So far as the senses can tell, the world is your closet, a silent pleasaunce for your waking dreams.  The coast-line has no lights, nor is any other vessel passing over the waters within range of eye or glass.  The hosts of heaven beam down upon a silent universe in which you are the only waking soul.  On a sudden eight bells rings out sharply from the forecastle head, and you spring back from your world of fancy as hurriedly as Cinderella returned to her rags when long-shore midnight chimed.  The officer of the middle watch and a hand for the wheel come aft to relieve their companions, the illusion has passed, and you go below to turn in, feeling uncomfortably sure that your pretty thoughts will appear foolish and commonplace enough when regarded in the matter-of-fact light of the coming day.