FORT GENOVA Ixxx 



them, the gummy leaves of a cistus stuck to the clothes ; and with 

 its small white flower and yellow heart, stood for our English 

 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 cocoa- 

 nut. 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 Geneva, 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 open- 

 ings 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 ; 



