We were now soon in sight of the Moorish coast, Cape Spartel appearing dimly through mist and vapour on our right. A regular Levanter { 293b} had now come on, and the vessel pitched and tossed to a very considerable degree. Most of the passengers were seasick; the governor, however, and myself held out manfully: we sat on a bench together, and entered into conversation respecting the Moors and their country. Torquemada himself could not have spoken of both with more abhorrence. He informed me that he had been frequently in several of the principal Moorish towns of the coast, which he described as heaps of ruins: the Moors themselves he called _Caffres_ { 293c} and wild beasts. He observed that he had never been even at Tangier, where the people were most civilized, without experiencing some insult, so great was the abhorrence of the Moors to anything in the shape of a Christian. He added, however, that they treated the English with comparative civility, and that they had a saying among them to the effect that Englishman and Mahometan were one and the same: he then looked particularly grave for a moment, and, crossing himself, was silent. I guessed what was passing in his mind:—
“From heretic boors, And Turkish Moors, Star of the sea, Gentle Marie, Deliver me!”
At about three we were passing Tarifa, so frequently mentioned in the history of Moors and Christians. Who has not heard of Alonzo Guzman the Faithful, { 294} who allowed his only son to be crucified before the walls of the town rather than submit to the ignominy of delivering up the keys to the Moorish monarch, who, with a host which is said to have amounted to nearly half a million of men, had landed on the shores of Andalusia, and threatened to bring all Spain once more beneath the Moslem yoke? Certainly if there be a land and a spot where the name of that good patriot is not sometimes mentioned and sung, that land, that spot, is modern Spain and modern Tarifa. I have heard the ballad of Alonzo Guzman chanted in Danish, by a hind in the wilds of Jutland; but once speaking of “the Faithful” to some inhabitants of Tarifa, they replied that they had never heard of Guzman the Faithful of Tarifa, but were acquainted with Alonzo Guzman, _el tuerto_, and that he was one of the most villanous _arrieros_ on the Cadiz road.