of distant mountains sweep round Gibraltar, bold
peaked, well defined, and deeply indented; the most distinguishable
points occasionally garnished with an old watch-tower to afford
protection against a corsair. The mountains seemed like those of the
first formation, liker, in other words, to the Highlands than those of
the South of Scotland. The chains of hills in Barbary are of the same
character, but more lofty and much more distant, being, I conceive, a
part of the celebrated ridge of Atlas.

Gibraltar is one of the pillars of Hercules, Ceuta on the Moorish side
is well known to be the other; to the westward of a small fortress
garrisoned by the Spaniards is the Hill of Apes, the corresponding
pillar to Gibraltar. There is an extravagant tradition that there was
once a passage under the sea from the one fortress to the other, and
that an adventurous governor, who puzzled his way to Ceuta and back
again, left his gold watch as a prize to him who had the courage to go
to seek it.

We are soon carried by the joint influence of breeze and current to the
African side of the straits, and coast nearly along a wild shore formed
of mountains, like those of Spain, of varied form and outline. No
churches, no villages, no marks of human hand are seen. The chain of
hills show a mockery of cultivation, but it is only wild heath
intermingled with patches of barren sand. I look in vain for cattle or
flocks of sheep, and Anne as vainly entertains hopes of seeing lions and
tigers on a walk to the sea-shore. The land of this wild country seems
to have hardly a name. The Cape which we are doubling has one,
however--the Cape of the Three Points. That we might not be totally
disappointed we saw one or two men engaged apparently in ploughing,
distinguished by their turbans and the long pikes which they carried.
Dr. Liddell says that on former occasions he has seen flocks and
shepherds, but the war with France has probably laid the country waste.

_November_ 16.--When I waked about seven found that we had the town of
Oran twelve or fourteen miles off astern. It is a large place on the
sea-beach, near the bottom of a bay, built close and packed together as
Moorish [towns], from Fez to Timbuctoo, usually are. A considerable hill
runs behind the town, which seems capable of holding 10,000 inhabitants.
The hill up to its eastern summit is secured by three distinct lines of
fortification, made probably by the Spanish when Oran was in their
po