We were not yet familiar with the squalor and neglect that seem the inevitable characteristics of a Moorish town, and it was a disappointment to find the interior of Tetuan correspond so ill to the picturesqueness of its outward aspect. After riding between high walls, apparently forming an inner defence to the town, we went through some streets of mean aspect, and, traversing one wide open space, passed under an interior gate guarded by a sentry, and found ourselves in a labyrinth of narrow alleys decidedly cleaner than the remainder of the city. This is the Jewish quarter, where, as in the Jewry or _Ghetto_ of mediæval Europe, the children of Israel are required to live apart, within a wall and gates that are locked at night, and where they seem to manage their own affairs with little interference from the Moorish authorities. We soon established ourselves in very fair quarters at the house of Isaac Nahum, who acts as clerk and interpreter at the single consulate which of late years has watched over the safety of all Europeans who happen to reach Tetuan whether by land or sea. Since the war in which Tetuan was taken by the Spanish troops—their solitary achievement during the last sixty years—the Government of Spain has desired to maintain its influence in this part of the country by the presence of a consul; and the other European States have willingly taken advantage of his presence. The duties cannot be heavy, for few strangers now visit Tetuan, although up to the year 1770 it was the residence of all the European consuls. The beauty of its site, the excellence of its oranges and other fruit, and the reported superiority in refinement of its inhabitants, both Moorish and Jew, do not compensate for the difficulty of access by sea, since none but the smallest class of coasting vessels can cross the bar at the mouth of the river. This is guarded (or was so up to the time of the Spanish war in 1859) by a massive square tower, without door or other apparent opening. A Christian boat from Gibraltar, in which one of us had formerly arrived, was hailed from the summit of the tower. After a preliminary parley, a rope ladder was let down from the top, some seventy or eighty feet, and a black soldier scrambled down with great activity, the final result of the parley being that the strangers, after payment of some trifling harbour dues, were sent to the town, a distance of five or six miles, under the escort of a soldier.