In Puerto de Cabras, the cluster of low whitewashed houses that forms the principal port of the island, time flowed in a tranquil stream that was scarcely agitated by the weekly arrival of the steamer bringing the mail, provisions, water, and out-of-date newspapers from Las Palmas. For the safer custody of the exile, fifty _guardias civiles_ had been drafted to the island and stationed in couples at various points round the coast. Every letter which he wrote or received was first opened and censored by police officials. In other respects his liberty of movement within the island was not interfered with and he was free to visit the distant villages that are sparsely scattered like oases in the midst of the stone-strewn wilderness of extinct volcanoes. Unamuno occupied a room overlooking the sea in the principal _fonda_ of the port. He usually rose before the bell of the little church on the other side of the wide cobbled street had rung for six o’clock Mass, and spent the morning working in his bedroom or composing a sonnet as he paced up and down the flat roof, bare-headed and stripped to the waist, in the sun. After a frugal lunch--the diet of Fuerteventura is of a Spartan simplicity!--he took a siesta during the heat of the afternoon and afterward strolled along the rock-bound shore or the _carretera_ that leads into the interior of the island. Although the action can scarcely have come within the compass of their duties, it was not surprising to see the lounging soldiers spring to salute when their prisoner, with his native air of authority and command, passed before the barracks-gate. When the brief twilight fell and the camels, returning from browsing on the scanty scrub, padded with muffled footfall through the darkening street, Unamuno joined the circle of village notables who were wont to assemble nightly on a row of chairs ranged on the pavement in front of the general store. Then, until the tardy supper hour arrived, a flow of philosophy, philology, paradox, travel-lore and political wisdom fell upon the astonished ears of the shopkeepers and petty officials of the port. Fortunate islanders!