I Assure You, My Disappointment Was Not Owing To The Want Either Of Perseverance Or Resolution, But The Serjeant Of My Guard Was An Ignorant Bigot, And A Great Coward, Therefore Unwilling And Unable To Protect, Or Share Any Danger With Me.

On my return here, I dismissed him, and obtained another serjeant, and a new guard, from the Governor, who

Caused my dismissed serjeant to be seized; and ordered him the _pallo_; but, at my intercession, he was pardoned, upon his promising for the future to evince a more soldierlike conduct, when summoned on duty.

The town of _Alcasser-Quiber_ being only three leagues from this place, I also went thither, to see the _Socco_, which is held once a week, and is frequented by a vast number of the inhabitants of the neighbouring mountains, who carry their produce, consisting of cattle, fowls, eggs, butter, soft cheese, and large quantities of wool, hides, and wax.

This city lies to the eastward of Larache, on the banks of the river _Luxos_, and is separated from the town of _Arzilla_ by alternate vallies and plains, amongst which some remains of redoubts, apparently, for the protection and defence of camps, are to be seen, and near which that unfortunate battle was fought in 1578, wherein _Don Sebastian_, King of Portugal, lost both his army and his life.

_Alcasser-Quiber_ is a place of some note, carrying on an extensive and profitable commerce with Tetuan and other places. The town and its environs suffer greatly by the occasional overflowing of the river Luxos, which might however easily be remedied; but the Moors have no notion of altering things; therefore, without endeavouring to secure themselves from a recurrence of such disasters, they allow their houses to be filled with water, and themselves to be, not unfrequently, washed out of them.

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