al ground on which each could exchange his
merchandise without let or hindrance from the other, how the sort of
sanctuary thus provided was never violated either by Algerine or
Spaniard, but each was free to come and go as he pleased, etc., and this
did somewhat reassure us, though we had all been more content to see our
destination on the crest of a high hill.

From this point we came in less than half an hour to Santa Pola, a small
village, but very bustling, for here the cart-road from Alicante ends,
all transport of commodities betwixt this and Elche being done on mules;
so here great commotion of carriers setting down and taking up
merchandise, and the way choked with carts and mules and a very babel of
tongues, there being Moors here as well as Spaniards, and all shouting
their highest to be the better understood of each other. These were the
first Moors we had seen, but they did not encourage us with great hopes
of more intimate acquaintance, wearing nothing but a kind of long,
ragged shirt to their heels, with a hood for their heads in place of a
hat, and all mighty foul with grease and dirt.

Being astir betimes the next morning, we reached Elche before midday,
and here we seemed to be in another world, for this region is no more
like Spain than Spain is like our own country. Entering the forest, we
found ourselves encompassed on all sides by prodigious high palm trees,
which hitherto we had seen only singly here and there, cultivated as
curiosities. And noble trees they are, standing eighty to a hundred feet
high, with never a branch, but only a great spreading crown of leaves,
with strings of dates hanging down from their midst. Beneath, in marshy
places, grew sugar-canes as high as any haystack; and elsewhere were
patches of rice, which grows like corn with us, but thrives well in the
shade, curiously watered by artificial streams of water. And for hedges
to their property, these Moors have agaves, with great spiky leaves
which no man can penetrate, and other strange plants, whereof I will
mention only one, they call the fig of Barbary, which is no fig at all,
but a thing having large, fleshy leaves, growing one out of the other,
with fruit and flower sprouting out of the edges, and all monstrous
prickly. To garnish and beautify this formidable defence, nature had
cast over all a network of creeping herbs with most extraordinary
flowers, delightful both to see and smell, but why so prickly, no man
can say.