day,-halting near a fountain under the shade of some fine old trees, after turning our horses adrift to provide for themselves,—we spread our provisions on the greensward, invited our escort to partake of the feast, when Mahomedan and Christian-Believer and Infidel-forgetful alike of former enmity and feuds, assuaged hunger together, and washed down the mealwe with long draughts of good Spanish wine, they with the cool and limpid water of the Ain-é-Sdeed, or "New Fountain," on whose margin we were thus socially bivouacked.

CHAPTER IX.

THE AFRICAN EXPEDITION.

Locality of the Ain-é-Sdeed-Muster of the forcesThe Marquis-The Commander-in-Chief, and Adjutant General-Susceptibility of the latterAn interpreter of soft nothings-Proposed interview with Hash-Hash-A case of mutiny-Punishment of the culprit-Departure from Tetuan, and affecting leave-taking-The jar of honey-The caravan-The Fire King-First view of Tangiers.

CHAPTER IX.

THE AFRICAN EXPEDITION.

"Nay, but this dotage of our Adjutant-General
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn
The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper." Antony and Cleopatra.

IN our last Chapter we left a joyous party revelling under the spreading branches and close dark foliage of the Ilex trees overshadowing the "Ain-é-Sdeed," or New Fountain: the source of a clear brook, whose murmuring waters, diffusing a refreshing verdure around, as they flowed towards the setting sun,

were now turned to account by the party seated on their flowery margin, in cooling sundry bottles of Xeres and Malaga, wherewith to recruit and renovate their wearied, wayworn frames.

But let us endeavour to describe the position we had taken up, and where we now found ourselves so comfortably bivouacked.

The construction of the "Ain" (fountain) was probably the charitable act of some pious Mussulman, who, ere he took his departure for the abode of the Houris, had endeavoured thus to atone to posterity for many a deed of treachery, rapine, and falsehood, with which he may have had to reproach himself during a long and misspent life. But no matter as to its origin; the "New Fountain" occupied one of the most enviable sites imaginable, even in this most delightful of climates. It was situated on the summit of a thickly-wooded ridge connecting the distant and snow-capped Atlas with the hilly Peninsula,* of which Mons

* This part of Western Barbary is inhabited by an aboriginal set of Berbers, of whom little is known,

262

CHANGE OF SCENERY.

Abila forms the apex, the coasts of the Mediterranean the sides, and the road between Tetuan and Tangiers the base.

From Tetuan, the path-as already described-wound through a verdant valley, along the banks of an oleander-covered stream, running in an easterly direction, until the track reached the foot of that spur of the Atlas on which stood the afore-mentioned fountain. Here the scenery suddenly changed: from green fields of waving barley and rich pasture, from the gaudy flowers of the oleander, the gum cistus, and rhododendron, on which the eye had long feasted, it suddenly encountered the "brown horrors" and deep shade of the ilex and noble cork trees, throwing their protecting branches across the steep and ravine-like path, which now,-resembling the dry bed of a mountain torrent,—led the

scarcely acknowledging the authority of the Emperor of Morocco, and who are of so unruly and treacherous a disposition, that no European has yet ventured to penetrate their fastnesses, which may therefore still be regarded as "terra incognita" to the civilized world.