affecting the object of our journey, the spring vegetation in North Marocco was unusually retarded. At the same time, so far as our sensations went, nothing could be more agreeable than the climate of this season, the thermometer in the shade during the day varying from 60° to 66° Fahr., and the air being delightfully clear and bracing. On April 8 we started for a short excursion to the headland of Cape Spartel. In the immediate neighbourhood of Tangier Europeans may safely walk or ride unattended; but, as we were going a little beyond the ordinary limits, it was considered prudent to give us the escort of two soldiers, and to these we added a baggage mule and a native guide. In a botanical sense we were about to travel over beaten ground—the only spot in all Marocco where a naturalist can without difficulty wander at will over rocky hills that retain their natural vegetation. The little that was then known of the flora of the empire would have dwindled to a scanty list if we had struck out the rich collections that successive botanists during the last 100 years have brought from the Djebel Kebir and the adjoining hilly district west of Tangier. Although there was little prospect of new discovery, the expedition could not fail to offer a veritable feast to a botanist, and especially to one not already familiar with the vegetation of the opposite coast and the adjoining region of southern Portugal. After standing the fire of some harmless ‘chaff’ from the Jew and Moorish boys that loitered about the city gate, we soon got clear of the enclosures near the town, and descended through cultivated land into a little grassy valley that lies below the hilly range of the Djebel Kebir. Bright spring annuals—blue and yellow lupen, crimson Adonis, a deep orange marigold (_Calendula suffruticosa_), blue pimpernel, and other less conspicuous flowers—enlivened the tillage ground; but the northern botanist is more struck by the perennial species that hold their ground on the large portion of the soil which the plough has not touched. Predominant among these, as elsewhere throughout a large part of the Mediterranean region, is the palmetto, or dwarf palm (_Chamærops humilis_). Where unmolested by animals, and protected from the periodic fires that the native herdsmen renew for the sake of getting herbage for their cattle, it forms a thick trunk, ten or twelve feet in height, which probably takes a long time to attain its full size; but in the open places it is commonly stemless, and covers the ground with its radiating tufts of stiff fan-shaped leaves. Many plants of the lily tribe abound; but in this mild climate most of them had flowered in winter, and few now showed more than their tufts of large root-leaves. Most conspicuous is the large maritime squill (_Scilla maritima_ of Linnæus). The flowers are not large or showy, and do not correspond with the size of the bulb which often equals that of a man’s head.