I went to-day up the river in a barge belonging to one of the schooners in the harbour. We landed at the bottom of the harbour to visit the great tower. It is about seventy feet square, and under two hundred in height, but was never finished. The facing of one of the angles has been stripped off by lightning, showing the interior of the masonry, which is composed throughout of stones exactly squared. The wall at the upper part is between six and seven feet thick. It is ascended by an inclined plane, up which a carriage might be driven. The centre is an inner tower composed of five stories of square halls, with the roofs in stucco, like the Alhambra. The outside is figured and carved. In simplicity and grace, “Hassan” exceeds the Giralda no less than in dimensions. Whoever has seen the Giralda, will know how much the name enhances the charm of that structure. This personification, which to us is an abnormal effort, and belongs to an ecstatic state, is part of their daily life. We may be poetic; they are poetry. The sword of Antor, the sword of Amra Ibn Maad,[200] the horn of Timour had each its name; and I never hear a bugle without a thrill, having, as a child, delighted in the history of the latter hero. Those who gave a man’s name to a tower, would be horror-struck at a man’s name given to a dog. The tower “Hassan” calls up the siege of Jerusalem and Lower Antonia. There all the towers had names--Hippicus, Piphunis, Mariamne: so the gates had names, as Genuath; but the gates, like those of Rabat, were probably structures exceeding the towers in dimensions. The staircase has been rendered impracticable both at the entrance and near the top, but we clambered up by the aid of holes in the walls. We could now take in the fortifications of Rabat. The whole forms a triangle, the sides of which are the river and the sea-coast; the apex is the Cazata on the point of Rabat. It covers a space of ground considerably larger than Granada. Adjoining the tower there is a large cistern with ten parallel walls running half through it, and beyond this, the extensive area of a mosque with many of the columns standing. They are of granite, unpolished. A century ago a missionary mentions the mosque as unroofed, with three hundred and sixty columns. This group of buildings is surrounded by massive walls in _Tapia_ with turrets. Wherever elsewhere are found monuments of past splendour, the race has disappeared, or it lives in subjection to some other people. Here the descendants of the people who reared these edifices, still dwell unconquered around. They gaze upon them with stupid wonder, knowing not whether they are the works of genii or their fathers.