Towards evening we began to descend rapidly; and after winding among some narrow rocky defiles, we came suddenly upon the sea. For some hours before, I had noticed very elevated mountains towards the south-east, rising above the lower hills that lay around; these, before reaching the sea, had seemed to be close at hand, and I was much puzzled to understand what mountains they could be, since I knew we were fast approaching the coast. It had never occurred to me that we had all day been travelling towards the Streights; and the sudden opening from which the sea burst upon me, explained my difficulty. These were the mountains of Africa; and the coast of Morocco rose boldly before me at the distance of a few leagues. It was impossible to look upon the coast of Africa for the first time, without peculiar emotions. Africa, its untrodden solitudes, and mighty and unknown rivers: its swarthy kings and savage people: its wonders and its wrongs. The mind travelled backward to Egypt and her glories--to Carthage and her dominion--to the Moors, their past conquests, and present debasement; and the eye, looking beyond the barrier of mountains that seemed guarding a fabled land, wandered over the desert of Zahara, and the reedy rivers; and descried the solitary white man walking by their banks,--seeking glory, and finding a grave! Soon after reaching the sea-shore, it became dusk, and in place of being now at our journey’s end, we were yet some leagues distant from it. I have seldom looked upon a wilder or more desolate scene, than that which lay around. Between us and the sea, was a succession of dry sand hills--on the left, vast fragments of rock were scattered below the cliffs, that rose in dark and rugged outline above, crowned by the ruins of a Moorish watch-tower;--and the roar of the sea, and the deepening dusk, and the place, and the solitude, and the helplessness of a traveller, all conspired to fix the scene deeply in my memory. It soon became entirely dark, excepting the light of the stars; but in such places, darkness scarcely adds to the insecurity of the traveller, because it conceals him. Almost all the robberies that take place, are at dusk; or sometimes, in broad day; and, unless one has been seen to set out upon a journey towards evening, darkness may be considered a defence. But in this journey, there were other dangers than robbery, to be apprehended; the road was intersected here and there, by arms of the sea, which, but for the reflection of the stars in the water, I must frequently have plunged into. Sometimes a shallow was found; and sometimes, by making a circuit, a bridge was discovered, but of the frailest and most dangerous kind. Once, following the young man who had joined company with us, and whose white jacket was a convenient guide, I found myself, before I was aware, upon a bridge not a yard in width; without parapet, and, in many places, loose beneath. The bridge was