We now passed over the _soc_ to the opposite side, where stand the huts of the guardians. Here a species of lane presents itself, which descends to the seashore; it is deep and precipitous, and resembles a gully or ravine. The banks on either side are covered with the tree which bears the prickly fig, called in Moorish, _Kermous del Inde_. {365} There is something wild and grotesque in the appearance of this tree or plant, for I know not which to call it. Its stem, though frequently of the thickness of a man’s body, has no head, but divides itself, at a short distance from the ground, into many crooked branches, which shoot in all directions, and bear green and uncouth leaves, about half an inch in thickness, and which, if they resemble anything, present the appearance of the fore fins of a seal, and consist of multitudinous fibres. The fruit, which somewhat resembles a pear, has a rough tegument covered with minute prickles, which instantly enter the hand which touches them, however slightly, and are very difficult to extract. I never remember to have seen vegetation in ranker luxuriance than that which these fig-trees exhibited, nor upon the whole a more singular spot. “Follow me,” said the _mahasni_, “and I will show you something which you will like to see.” So he turned to the left, leading the way by a narrow path up the steep bank, till we reached the summit of a hillock, separated by a deep ditch from the wall of Tangier. The ground was thickly covered with the trees already described, which spread their strange arms along the surface, and whose thick leaves crushed beneath our feet as we walked along. Amongst them I observed a large number of stone slabs lying horizontally; they were rudely scrawled over with odd characters, which stooped down to inspect. “Are you _talib_ enough read those signs?” exclaimed the old Moor. “They are letters of the accursed Jews; this is their _mearrah_, as they call it, and here they inter their dead. Fools, they trust in Muza, when they might believe in Mohammed, and therefore their dead shall burn everlastingly in _Jehinnim_. See, my sultan, how fat is the soil of this _mearrah_ of the Jews; see what _kermous_ grow here. When I was a boy I often came to the _mearrah_ of the Jews to eat _kermous_ in the season of their ripeness. The Moslem boys of Tangier love the _kermous_ of the _mearrah_ of the Jews; but the Jews will not gather them. They say that the waters of the springs which nourish the roots of these trees pass among the bodies of their dead, and for that reason it is an abomination to taste of these fruits. Be this true, or be it not, one thing is certain, in whatever manner nourished, good are the _kermous_ which grow in the _mearrah_ of the Jews.”