As morning broke, a dismal prospect presented itself--the water white with foam, and the heavens black. We were close under the rock, with a sort of cave or cavern abreast of us: boats were lying within, for their masts appeared over a breakwater of loose rocks. We durst not attempt to weather the point, and every moment were exposed to the utmost peril by the slightest shift of wind or current. The long and varied sweep of the Moorish battlements became visible through the sleet, lighting up gradually, and changing as if presented on a stage: suddenly a long boat, well manned, emerged as if from under water, and casting us a line, towed us into the entrance, which looked landwards, and had hitherto been concealed from us. We struck once or twice on a bar, and the very moment that we cleared the jetty, a sudden gust from the north laid us on our beam-ends, and swinging inside instead of out, we were not dashed to pieces. During three months, I had seen nothing but clear skies and smooth seas. I could now feelingly revert to the words of a Spaniard, who, when Philip V. asked which were the principal harbours of Spain, answered, “June, July, and Cadiz.”[43] We had to stand nearly two hours, dripping and shivering, till the necessary sanitary formalities were gone through, and the permission of the governor to enter the town, received. Of this we availed ourselves with more alacrity than speed, in drenched clothes and water-logged boots, over soft wet sand. We entered this strange town through the gate of Guzman the Good. I found myself at the Posada for the first time, under a gipsy roof. The author of “The Gipsies in Spain” has selected this house as the scene of the most salient incident of his work. In it he exhibits the gipsy race with diabolical features, and under circumstances scarcely credible. Nevertheless, the story tended rather to diminish my distrust, than to augment it, for here it was no midnight adventure; no meeting with an unarmed person in a nameless street--the names are all given. Little did I expect, at the time of reading the story, to have the opportunity of verifying it.