646 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
entered bv a narrow channel, which is defended by a tower. 
Some other little craft were here before us, and soon all 
hands were engaged in pulling ashore and fixing the cables, 
&c. In the evening we saw the picturesque torch-fishing, 
which is so commonly practised in the Mediterranean during 
the fine summer nights. One of the caverns, inhabited by the 
fishermen, and brilliantly lighted inside, glared among the 
black rocks by which it was surrounded, like the yawning jaws 
of an infernal dungeon. 
Two days yet ere we reached the wild mountains near 
the Cape de Gatte. All this southern coast of Valencia is 
fringed with towers, originally built to guard against the 
Algerine Corsairs, but now solely used to arrest the contra- 
band trade so boldly carried on with Cadiz. They are low, 
all alike, near each other, sometimes furnished with one or 
two small guns, and entered by a door placed half way up 
the building. One was most picturesquely situated on a 
rock, called by our sailors “ Mesa de Roldan,” or Howland’s 
table. 'The story goes that this hero sliced a mountain in 
two with his sword, flung half into the sea, where it yet forms 
an island, and of the rest shaped this wild coast, cutting it out 
into gulfs and promontories. It was strange to meet with 
tales of this warlike wight, so far as the south coast of Spain 
from the scene of his exploits. At Altea some similar legend 
accounts for the peculiar shape of a crag. 
Cape de Gatte consists of reddish rocks, whose colour 
sufficiently attests their volcanic origin; though some few 
parts which come down to the sea are of such dazzling white- 
ness as to resemble masses of snow. Often have I regretted 
that I could not visit these spots, whose formation promises 
a peculiar vegetation. 
We soon came in view of the extensive scorched plains, 
named Campos de Nijar and which extend as far as Almeria, 
whose old towers we descried. Behind, the lofty Sierra de 
Gador rose in snow-clad summits and concealed from us the 
Sierra Nevada. We then entered the channel, at the utmost, 
forty leagues wide, formed by the two approaching conti- 
