But If Government Do It
Not, I Am Sure It Would Answer The Purpose Of A Private Company, And I
Have No Doubt Such Speculation Will Soon Be Taken Up.
Vessels freighted
with perishable cargoes are often obliged to wait weeks, nay months, at
the mouth of the Straits, to the great injury of commerce.
In our days
of steam and rapid communication, this cannot be tolerated. [13]
After a voyage of four days, we found ourselves off the coast of
Mogador. The wind had been pretty good, but we had suffered some delay
from a south wind, which headed us for a short time. We prayed for a
westerly breeze, of which we soon got enough from west and north-west.
The first twelve hours it came gently on, but gradually increased till
it blew a gale. The captain was suddenly called up in the night, as
though the ship was going to sink, or could sink, whilst she was running
as fast as we would let her before the wind. But the real danger lay in
missing the coast of Mogador, or not being able to get within its port
from the violence of the breakers near the shore. Our vessel was a small
Genoese brig; and, though the Genoese are the best sailors in the
Mediterranean - even superior to the Greeks, who rank next - our captain
and his crew began to quake. At daylight, the coast-line loomed before
us, immersed in fog, and two hours after, the tall minaret of the great
mosque of Mogador, shooting erect, a dull lofty pyramid, stood over the
thick haze lying on the lower part of the coast.
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