FORT GENOVA 111 



dog-rose. In place of heather, we had myrtle and 

 lentisque with leaves somewhat similar. That 

 large bulb with long flat leaves ? Do not touch it 

 if your hands are cut ; the Arabs use it as blisters 

 for their horses. Is that the same sort ? No, 

 take that one up ; it is the bulb of a dwarf palm, 

 each layer of the onion peels off, brown and netted, 

 like the outside of a cocoanut. It is a clever 

 plant that ; 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 



