I Had A Bottle Of Cognac, Which I Had Brought With Me
As A Preventive To Sea Sickness, And I Presented It To Them; But
This They Also Refused, Exclaiming, Haram (It Is Forbidden).
I
said nothing.
We were now close to the lighthouse of Tarifa, and turning the head
of the bark towards the west, we made directly for the coast of
Africa. The wind was now blowing very fresh, and as we had it
almost in our poop, we sprang along at a tremendous rate, the huge
lateen sails threatening every moment to drive us beneath the
billows, which an adverse tide raised up against us. Whilst
scudding along in this manner, we passed close under the stern of a
large vessel bearing American colours; she was tacking up the
straits, and slowly winning her way against the impetuous Levanter.
As we passed under her, I observed the poop crowded with people
gazing at us; indeed, we must have offered a singular spectacle to
those on board, who, like my young American friend at Gibraltar,
were visiting the Old World for the first time. At the helm stood
the Jew; his whole figure enveloped in a gabardine, the cowl of
which, 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:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 400 of 424
Words from 209959 to 210492
of 222596