ROMAN RUINS OF VOLUBILIS 487 MOULDING OF DOUBLE INTERLACED LINES 488 _MAP_ A NEW MAP OF SOUTH MAROCCO, by JOHN BALL, F.R.S. _At the end of volume._ JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN MAROCCO. CHAPTER I. Voyage to Gibraltar — View of Tangier — Interior of the town — Portuguese and English occupation — Hospitable reception by Sir John Drummond Hay — Ravensrock — Government of Marocco — Climate of North Marocco — Exceptional season — The Djebel Kebir and its vegetation — Cistus and Heath region — Cape Spartel — Night at the Lighthouse — Cave of Hercules — Arab village — Return to Tangier. On Saturday, April 1, 1871, our party, consisting of Sir Joseph (then Dr.) Hooker, Mr. Maw, and Mr. Ball, with a young gardener, named Crump, from the Royal Gardens at Kew, left Southampton for Gibraltar, in the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s Steamship _Massilia_. Even for the ordinary tourist it is a pleasant thing to turn his face towards the South in the early part of the year, and to feel that he is about to exchange six or eight weeks of bitter easterly winds for the bright skies and soft breezes of the Mediterranean region. Still more does the botanist rejoice to quit the poverty of our slowly unfolding spring flora for the wealth of varied vegetation that is spread around the shores of the Inland Sea. But for us, the occasion was one of deeper and more special interest. We were starting, under unusually favourable conditions, to explore a country which, though close to Europe, is among the least known regions of the earth. Although the obstacles we were sure to encounter and the limited time at our disposal, might not allow us to accomplish much, we felt a confident hope that we should learn something of a great mountain chain all but absolutely unknown to geographers, and be able to fill up some missing pages in the records of our favourite science. The thrill of pleasurable anticipation at the prospect of setting foot within the boundaries of _terra incognita_ was heightened by the fact that for each of us this land of Marocco had long been the object of especial interest and curiosity.