Ceuta stands upon a narrow promontory that forms the eastern extremity of a spur projecting from the high range of Ape’s Hill. As this promontory is only the last in a series of conical summits that gradually diminish in height as they approach the Mediterranean, the fortress is completely commanded on the land side. But the Spaniards have erected small forts on the nearer heights, and with moderate watchfulness are secure enough from any assault that could be made by the Moors. As we rode over the neck of land connecting the fortress with the adjoining hills, and finally approached the only entrance, which is reached by a succession of gates and drawbridges, we had leisure to admire the elaborate character of the defences, in which every known resource of military engineering, as understood at the beginning of the last century, seems to have been accumulated. The soul of Uncle Toby would have delighted in the multiplication of ditches, curtains, ravelins, demi-lunes, hornworks, and palisades that have been expended here for the purpose of astonishing the untutored mind of the ignorant Moor. The little town that forms the kernel of these vast fortifications far surpassed our expectations. Say what we will, there is a vast gap between the condition of the least advanced countries of Europe and the barbarism from which no Mohammedan State has yet contrived to raise itself. Ceuta, however, is a very favourable sample of a Spanish town, and is far superior in aspect to most places of equal importance in the mother-country. The well-built houses in the main street, all dazzling with fresh whitewash, were gay with bright flowers that stood in pots and boxes on the balconies behind ironwork of elaborately ornate character, and the inhabitants had an air of activity and animation not common in Spain, anywhere out of Catalonia. We drew our bridles at the Fonda Italiana, the best looking of several inns, where we learned that all the bedrooms were occupied, and were sent for sleeping quarters to a neighbouring house. We got a large room with two good beds, and found everything both there and at the inn, where we were well fed, scrupulously clean. Our remark, which probably would not have been approved in Downing Street, was, ‘What a pity, when they were about it, that the Spaniards did not annex the whole of North Marocco!’ The course of events in Spain during the last six or eight years has gone far to justify Downing Street, and to show that European anarchy may be even worse than Moorish misgovernment.