Close by is another quarter in which convicts are lodged, _el Hacho_, or the hilly ground or topmost point of Ceuta on which is placed the citadel which crowns the fortifications. It takes the overflow from the principal barrack and is moreover generally occupied by the worst characters, the most insubordinate and incorrigible members of the prison population. The rooms, as in the barrack below, are dirty, overcrowded and insecure, but a few windows of the upper story open on to the Mediterranean and are not always protected by either wooden or iron bars. _El Hacho_ contains within its limits a certain number of solitary cells, well known and much dreaded by the habitual criminals of Spain. They are essentially punishment cells used in the coercion of the incorrigible and are just as dark, damp and wretched as the larger rooms. But the solitary inmate in each cell is generally kept chained to the wall or is as it is styled _amarrado en blanca_, nearly naked and heavily ironed. The treatment is exemplary in its cruelty, but does not necessarily cure the subject. There was one irreclaimable upon whom several years of the _calabozo_ had had no effect. He had been sentenced to be thus chained up as the penalty for murderously wounding an overseer in _el Hacho_, but he did not mend his manners. On one occasion on the arrival of a new governor all under punishment were pardoned. This convict when sent out forthwith furiously attacked the first warder he met and was again condemned to be locked up as a ceaseless danger to the presidio. He is remembered as little more than a youth, but with a diabolical countenance and indomitable air. The district of the _Barcas_ does not contain a barrack properly speaking, but there is a space cut in the thickness of the line wall entering a patio or courtyard which gives upon seven rooms, some high, some low; of these three and part of the yard were filled with munitions of war, and a battery of artillery was placed over the dormitories on their upper floor. Many of the convicts are employed as boatmen and watchmen in the port, others have charge of the walls and carry water up to the guardhouses on the higher level. They also attend to the service of the drawbridge between the old and new town. One who was employed as gatekeeper at the drawbridge was well remembered. He was trusted to call on all convicts who passed to produce their permits of free circulation or to enter and leave the fortress. He had a pleasant rubicund face, was one armed, a little deaf, but with very sharp eyes, not easily hoodwinked. He was a confirmed gossip who picked up all the news which he retailed to all who passed in and out. Escapes were of constant occurrence at Ceuta, but few occurred by the drawbridge of the _Barcas_.