rescently under the pallid rays. By the Mole were
visible the outlines of barques, steamers, coal-brigs, and xebecs; away
to the left were the _Catapult_ and a few of her mosquito companions;
and far out rode at anchor a stately frigate of the United States'
fleet. The twinkling lamps of the city afloat sending out reddish lines,
and the fuller, clearer, luminous pencillings of the gas-lamps of the
city ashore, made a not ungrateful contrast to the quivering chart of
poetic moonbeams. Bending over their edge were the deep shadows of the
massive Rock; and bounding them, at the other side, the barren
foot-hills of Algeciras mellowed into a phantom softness by distance and
the night.

Next morning, as I strolled by the sea-wall towards the Ragged Staff
Battery, I saw a sight that took away my appetite for breakfast. Pacing
slowly to their work to the music of clanking chains was a column of
wretched convicts.[A] What haggard faces, with low foreheads, sunken
eyes, and dogged moody expression or utter blankness of expression!
Purely animal the most of that legion of despair and desperation looked,
and sallow and sickly of complexion. They were a blot on the fresh
sunshine. How hideous their coarse garb of pied jackets branded with the
broad arrow, their knickerbockers and clumsy shoes! Wistfully they moved
along, hardly daring to glance at me, through fear of the turnkeys with
loaded rifles marching at their sides. I almost felt that, if I had the
power, I would demand their release, as did the Knight of La Mancha that
of the criminals on their way to the galleys, although they might have
been as ungrateful as Gines de Passamonte; but those hang-dog
countenances banished impulses of chivalry.

The little steamer, the _Spahi_, which conveyed us across the Strait,
was seaworthy for all her cranky appearance, and made the passage of
thirty-two miles quickly and comfortably for all her roughness of
accommodation. She was a cargo-boat, but her skipper was English, and
did his best to make the ladies feel at home. Besides, Captain No. 1 had
brought a select basket of provisions and a case of dry, undoctored
champagne. One of our first experiences as we cleared Algeciras, with
turrets like our martello-towers sentinelling the hills, and the
three-masted wreck--"Been twenty-one days there," said the skipper, "and
not an effort has been made to raise it yet, and not even a warning
light is hung over it at night"--was to sight a bot