actual - DSpace@GIPE

INTO TlIE UND OF THE MOORS. 13
various minerals, rock worn into honeycomb caverns, and aJso
giant pudding-stones.
We saw severa.! white buildings with low domes, the tombs of
various marabouts or saints, above which tloat one or two tlags,'
and to which pilgrimages are constantly being made by the superstitious
peasantry. At one point the cliffs decline abruptly to the
sea and so we had to mako a long detour to reach Larache, which
is situated on a hill-side upon the southern bank of the river Kus
where it enters the ocean. This river opeus into quite a little bay
in which lay a very smaJI French steamer and three or four feluccas,
small ooasting-veBBels with two masts inclining towards either
extremity of the boat and a huge triangular sail upon the forward
one. The town, like Aroilla, was built originally by the Portuguese.
It is surrounded by a notched wall of stone and smaJI
brick, with a large towered fort on the ocean side and the governor's
paJace behind the centre of the town. The mouth of the
river is not more than one hundred feet in width and is very
shallow, so that only the smaJIest veBBels can enter, and even for
them it is very dangerous in squaJly weather. Sailing craft are
towed through the narrow channel 'and far out to sea by means of
a rope attached to a distant kedge. The pilot-boat is manned by
sixteen rowers, a steersman and a captain. We and our animaJs
and baggage were transported across in huge tlat-bottomed scows,
and then we slowly filed through dirty, narrow, crooked and illpaved
streets, between very dilapidated houses and through the
aoko or market-place-with its colonnade of little arches containing
aJI aorts of shops, and with a few deaJers about, offering fish,
vegetables and fruitB-and then on through a huge gate out upon
the blu.lf, near the edge of which we camped.
There is a oonsiderable export as well as import trade at Larache,
and vast heaps of sugar were awaiting transport into the interior,
while equaJly as large ones of various graius were piled ready for
shipment. The wharf and streets were full of people-Moors,
Arnbs, Jews, Spaniards, Syrians, Negroes, eta. One beheld every
shade of complexion and many picturesque styles of dress. There
is an immense ditch about the waJ1s, which are pierced for muskets
and surmounted by long and slim bronze cannon. Two batteries
of heavy, but very rusty and apparently useless, cannon, lie at the
foot of the bluff without the waJIs. Not far from our camp were
severa.! others of natives who had brought bags of grain from the
interior and whose droves of camels and donkeys would soon be