at; from the
leaves we get a vegetable horsehair;--and eat the bottom of the centre
spike. All the leaves you pull have the same aromatic scent. But here
a little patch of cleared ground shows old friends, who seem to cling
by abused civilisation:--fine hardy thistles, one of them bright
yellow, though;--honest, Scotch-looking, large daisies or
gowans;--potatoes here and there, looking but sickly; and dark sturdy
fig-trees, looking cool and at their ease in the burning sun.

"Here we are at Fort Genova, crowning the little point, a small old
building due to my old Genoese acquaintance who fought and traded
bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon of theirs forms the
threshold; and through a dark, low arch we enter upon broad terraces
sloping to the centre, from which rain-water may collect and run into
that well. Large-breeched French troopers lounge about and are most
civil; and the whole party sit down to breakfast in a little
white-washed room, from the door of which the long, mountain coastline
and the sparkling sea show of an impossible blue through the openings
of a white-washed rampart. I try a sea-egg, one of those prickly
fellows--sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; the shell is of a
lovely purple, and when opened there are rays of yellow adhering to
the inside; these I eat, but they are very fishy.

"We are silent and shy of one another, and soon go out to watch while
turbaned, blue-breeched, bare-legged Arabs dig holes for the land
telegraph posts on the following principle: one man takes a pick and
bangs lazily at the hard earth; when a little is loosened, his mate
with a small spade lifts it on one side; and _da capo_. They have
regular features, and look quite in place among the palms. Our English
workmen screw the earthenware insulators on the posts, strain the
wire, and order the Arabs about by the generic term of Johnny. I find
W---- has nothing for me to do; and that in fact no one has anything
to do. Some instruments for testing have stuck at Lyons, some at
Cagliari; and nothing can be done--or, at any rate, is done. I wander
about, thinking of you and staring at big, green
grasshoppers--locusts, some people call them--and smelling the rich
brushwood. There was nothing for a pencil to sketch, and I soon got
tired of this work, though I have paid willingly much money for far
less strange and lovely sights.

"_Off Cape