flying in the breeze on the flat roofs of its Consuls' houses. The river
Lekkus showed up whitely on the eastern side, a rising wind having whipped
its waters into foam, and driven the light coasting vessels out to sea. So
much I saw from the good ship _Zweena's_ upper deck, and then evening
fell, as though to hide from me the secret of the gardens where the
Golden Apples grew.

Alas, that modern knowledge should have destroyed all faith in old legend!
The fabled fruits of the Hesperides turn to oranges in the hands of our
wise men, the death-dealing dragon becomes Wad Lekkus itself, so ready
even to-day to snarl and roar at the bidding of the wind that comes up out
of the south-west, and the dusky maidens of surpassing loveliness are no
more than simple Berber girls, who, whilst doubtless dusky, and possibly
maidenly as ever, have not inherited much of the storied beauty of their
forbears. In spite of this modern perversion of the old tale I find that
the oranges of the dining-table have a quite rare charm for me
to-night,--such an attraction as they have had hitherto only when I have
picked them in the gardens of Andalusia, or in the groves that perfume the
ancient town of Jaffa at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean. Now I
have one more impression to cherish, and the scent of a blossoming orange
tree will recall for me El Araish as I saw it at the moment when the
shroud of evening made the mosques and the kasbah of Mulai al Yazeed melt,
with the great white spaces between them, into a blurred pearly mass
without salient feature.

[Illustration: MOORISH HOUSE, CAPE SPARTEL]

You shall still enjoy the sense of being in touch with past times and
forgotten people, if you will walk the deck of a ship late at night. Your
fellow-passengers are abed, the watch, if watch there be, is invisible,