From the tower we proceeded two or three miles up the river to orange groves on the low ground, belonging to the late governor, which appeared utterly deserted, and the fruit lay rotting under the trees. Our European sailors loaded their boats with fruit, and decorated it with branches bearing fruit and flowers. I fancied the companions of Hercules must have done something of the same kind. We found here a party of the Sultan’s troops, who were giving and receiving a treat from each other. There were various little fires and round trays of tea: they hailed us and made us land, and we had to drink tea with them. There was a nephew of the Emperor amongst them, a fine lad, almost black, with beautiful Greek features approaching to that Abyssinian cast, some individuals of which have appeared to me to be the most wonderful specimens of the human race. Homer was of the same opinion. Several Spanish renegades were pointed out to me: they were criminals who had escaped from the Spanish presidio. The Moors spoke of them without contempt; the Jews told me they were much esteemed. I had been told at Ceuta that few attempted to escape, and that, when they did, they came back again, in consequence of the bad treatment they received. The Spaniards have an “extradition” treaty with the Moors, but here that modern infamy meets its reward--the deserters become Mussulmans. How different the present practice of converting the fortresses on the frontier into depôts for culprits, from that ancient practice of the Spanish kings, by which the frontier fortresses were sanctuaries. When reading those old charters, I had imagined that the object was to people them, and such is the explanation given by the Spanish legal writers; but now I saw the real purpose,--which was to afford the malefactor, who had already escaped from punishment, relief from apostacy. The malefactor was sheltered for a year and a day, and was then free. He would have been kept there for life, had the object been to people the fortresses. This is further confirmed by the singular privilege of these sanctuaries to receive women who had run away from their husbands, and once within them they are freed from the bonds of matrimony. These provisions will be found in the Charter of Ferdinand IV., granted to Gibraltar, and afterwards confirmed by Alonzo XI. From the benefits of the sanctuary were excepted only traitors--those who had delivered up castles--those who had broken the king’s peace, or seduced their lord’s wife. Thus Moses separated three cities of refuge “on this side Jordan towards the sun’s rising;”[201] that is, on the side of the enemy and on his border. The period of sojourn was contingent on the life of the high-priest.