CONNEXION BETWEEN MAURITANIA AND AMERICA 353 CHAPTER VIII. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOORS 364 BOOK III. THE ARAB TENT. CHAPTER I. HUNTING EXPEDITION TO SHAVOYA 377 CHAPTER II. KUSCOUSSOO 398 CHAPTER III. THE HAÏK 416 CHAPTER IV. A BOAR-HUNT 440 THE PILLARS OF HERCULES. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. THE STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR. “Nullus amor populi nec fœdera sunto: Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor, Qui face Dardanios ferroque sequare colonos; Nunc, olim, quocunque dabunt se tempore vires. Littora littoribus contraria, fluctibus undas Imprecor, arma armis, pugnent ipsique nepotes.” To thread one’s way through a narrow gap from the outer Ocean into a basin spread between Asia, Africa, and Europe, is an occasion which even books of geography cannot render wholly uninteresting and common-place. This sea has, at each extremity, a narrow entrance; through both the water rushes in: each forms the point of junction of two quarters of the globe,--Europe there meeting Asia--here, Africa. The first is acknowledged to be the most important position of the globe. The land and sea there reciprocally command each other. A capital, an emporium, and a fortress, combined in one, are placed at the meeting of two continents and two seas, “like a diamond,” to use the words of a Turkish annalist, “between two emeralds and two sapphires, the master-stone in the ring of empire.” Had the western entrance received the slightest pressure at its formation, had one of the hills since slipped down into its channel, the Gut of Gibraltar would not be the Ring on the finger, but the rod of Empire in the hand of whoever possessed it. Happily, however, no guns can cross, and no batteries command, the passage through which flows the commerce of the world, and, at times, the food of nations. Both banks of the Bosphorus are under the same dominion, and inhabited by the same people. The channel bisects an Empire and traverses a Capital. Two people, so dissimilar, occupy here the opposite shores, that they might belong to different planets. No fishing-boat ventures across, and if so driven, they take care if they can to anchor beyond musket-shot. As to neighbourhood, the whole Atlantic might as well roll between them. As to intercourse, they might as well belong to distinct orders of creation. They hold each other like to those unsightly and malignant monsters to which ancient mythology consigned the western portions of the world. If intercourse is rendered necessary, there is a preliminary parley and a flag of truce, and even the ceremonial of a friendly meeting records the accomplishment of Dido’s prophecy and curse.