raised above his head, gave him almost the appearance of a spectre in its shroud; whilst upon the deck, mixed with Europeans in various kinds of dresses, all of them picturesque with the exception of my own, trod the turbaned Moors, the haik of the hadji flapping loosely in the wind.  The view they obtained of us, however, could have been but momentary, as we bounded past them literally with the speed of a racehorses so that in about an hour’s time we were not more than a mile’s distance from the foreland on which stands the fortress Alminar, and which constitutes the boundary point of the bay of Tangier towards the east.  There the wind dropped and our progress was again slow.

For a considerable time Tangier had appeared in sight.  Shortly after standing away from Tarifa, we had descried it in the far distance, when it showed like a white dove brooding on its nest.  The sun was setting behind the town when we dropped anchor in its harbour, amidst half a dozen barks and felouks about the size of our own, the only vessels which we saw.  There stood Tangier before us, and a picturesque town it was, occupying the sides and top of two hills, one of which, bold and bluff, projects into the sea where the coast takes a sudden and abrupt turn.  Frowning and battlemented were its walls, either perched on the top of precipitous rocks, whose base was washed by the salt billows, or rising from the narrow strand which separates the hill from the ocean.

Yonder are two or three tiers of batteries, displaying heavy guns which command the harbour; above them you see the terraces of the town rising in succession like steps for giants.  But all is white, perfectly white, so that the whole seems cut out of an immense chalk rock, though true it is that you behold here and there tall green trees springing up from amidst the whiteness:  perhaps they belong to Moorish gardens, and beneath them even now peradventure is reclining many a dark-eyed Leila, akin to the houries.  Right before you is a high tower or minaret, not white but curiously painted, which belongs to the principal mosque of Tangier; a black banner waves upon it, for it is the feast of Ashor.  A noble beach of white sand fringes the bay from the town to the foreland of Alminar.  To the east rise prodigious hills and mountains; they are Gibil Muza and his chain; and yon tall fellow is the peak of Tetuan; the grey mists of evening are enveloping their sides.  Such was Tangier, such its vicinity, as it appeared to me whilst gazing from the Genoese bark.

A boat was now lowered from the vessel, in which the captain, who was charged with the mail from Gibraltar, the Jew secretary, and the hadji and his attendant negroes departed for the shore.  I would have gone with them, but I was told that I could not land that night, as ere my passport and bill of health could be examined, the gates would be closed; so I remained on board with the crew and the two Jews.  The former prepared their supper, which consisted simply