Gibraltar
April March 16/[18]71
Dearest F[rances].*1
I posted a letter to you today with journal of proceedings up to Tetuan. Thursday was the last of the Passover days & in the eve[n]ing the Jews receive their friends & visit by turns, so that there was constant excitement in the house & at one time an attempt at a dance to the music of an accordion, but the rooms were so small & the Divans so big, that it was soon dropped. Mother Nahum came out in a golden silk dress, & her neck loaded with beads -- the fair (I forget her name) wore a gorgeous green silk & other maidens had black & green velvet dresses braided with gold & splendid tiaras, most of the men had long blue dresses braided in front, kaftans, long white stockings & slippers, but our host Isaac fearing the[?] losing dignity as an attaché of the Consulate by assuming the national dress, appeared in an ugly English frock with trousers to match & an alarming silk tie. -- Next day Frid[a]y we started early for Ceuta 30 miles to N[orth]. (opposite Gibraltar) being assured that the Spanish courier boat would

take us across to Algeciras (near Gibraltar) in time for the Gibraltar steamer to Tangier. The ride was nearly due N[orth]. seaward from Tetuan over a low flat country of stony soil cut into gulleys by the rain, we met on the way number of country moors*2 bringing their goods, chiefly vegetables & fodder to market, on asses mules & womens backs. Much of the route was along the sea shore, through small trees of Tamarix africana, an occasional mulber[r]y, & bushes of Juniperus phoenicea, which grows on sand hills close to the water. Often we passed large pools of brackish water, with Arab boys fishing & at one place a river which we had to wade across, as the sand was of so quicksand a nature that it was as much as the muleteers could do to get the baggage animals across. Passing Cape Negro, the promontry[sic] of Ceuta appears ending in a hilly knoll crowned with forts, the town lying in a narrow neck of land joining betwe the said knoll with the main. Ceuta is still a Spanish town, & the miles around it are crowned by outlying forts of the Spaniards. As soon as we entered Spanish territory we came on magnificent crops bounded with good stone dykes, a marvellous contrast

to Morocco agriculture. The town is quite enclosed in massive walls, & we entered by a drawbridge & port-cullis, & then through a guard of soldiers to which we gave up our pass from the Spanish consul at Tetuan. Outside the gates was a group of gipsy Riffian women in white with immense long braids of black hair hanging over their neck in front[?], broad sallow faces & a blue tattoo mark on the forehead & lower lip -- Inside we passed scarp & counterscarp, ravelin & all the paraphernalia of a heavily fortified town, much of the masonry was very handsome with the Royal arms of Spain carved in marble over the arches. The Town itself is very neat, broad streets, which passed houses with beautiful wrought iron gates to the Houses & green painted grilles of the same protecting the large windows of the lower stories. It is evidently a place to which great importance was once attached & in which the officers & officials civil & military were handsomely housed. We put up at the Fonda Italiana, a clean enough home with civil people & moderate charges -- at the table d'hote we met a Spanish naval officer, the Capt[ain] of the Port who had been

in England where he enjoyed London & especially the Crystal Palace & Alhambra in Leicester Square.
On Saturday at 8 we left for Algeciras with a fine S[outh]. W[esterly]. breeze in a Felucca, carrying the mails from Ceuta to Algeciras. When we arrived at noon, the Tangiers boat we found was taken up with carrying people to Cadiz (for Sevilla) to see a bull-fight, so we took quarters at a small boarding House in the Quay & started to the hills W[est]. of the town to botanize and observe the differences between the plan vegetation of this & the opposite coast -- a walk of a couple of miles through leaves & over cultivated slopes, led to the foot of the hills, which are covered with a scant forest of fine cork oak trees, with trunks 1 -- 3 feet in girth; the lower part for 6 -- 8 f[ee]t up red dark brown from the outer part layers being removed. The upper still dotted[?] with Cork & here & there festooned with a beautiful fern (Davallia canariensis) -- the undergrowth was of Bracken, Brambles, Genista, Ulex Cistus Heaths & much as in Morocco, but we found three plants that did have not occurred hitherto [in] Morocco. Rhododendron ponticum, Erica ciliaris & Sibthorpia europeana[sic] -- Higher up the hills became very stony, with several grasses that we

have not found in Morocco & a splendid yellow Helianthemum not seen before. Altogether the vegetation was further advanced than in Marocco [Marrakech]. The climate very probably drier. The scenery was very pretty, the white county houses with red roofs forming a civilized c[ounte]rpart to the square flat topped cubes that do the duty of houses in the opposite coast. On our return in the evening the streets were full of people who raised deafening shouts after us, as foreigners, but did not otherwise molest us. Sunday April 16. Crossed to Gibraltar & found no boat to Tangiers, -- we are now reduced to the last state of dirty clothes & shabbyness, having sent our things on to Tangiers with the mules & horses from Ceuta. All the boats are taken up for the bull fight, & the wind being S[outh]. W[esterly]. no sailing boat would be undertake to carry us to Tangiers against the constant skerry in-setting current that ever flows for the Atlantic, except for a fabulous. We then made enquiries for a steamer, & one merchant offered us a tug-boat for $100 -- (about £20)

a modest demand for a sail of 30 miles. Another, a Mr Cowell, had a boat (steamer) which he intended to send tomorrow but offered to put us across today for $45 (£9.0.0) he says however that he would prefer that we waited till tomorrow, when he would take us at the ordinary fare -- and as the Magadore [Mogador now Essaouira] steamer is not in, we have agreed to wait. Meanwhile we called on the Governor of Gibraltar, Sir William Williams (of Kars)*3 to whom Mr Cardwell (S[ecretar]y of War)*4 had written about us, & who had reputed to see us on our way to Tangiers a week ago -- he was most kind & pressed us to stay for luncheon & dinner, but we are so outrageously shabby that we cannot think of it; & the best Hotel in the place (the Club House) being full, we have taken up our quarters at the Fonda Españole, a decent house with a good clean table, next down to Mr Cowells office: -- the latter is extremely civil & offered us fruit & dessert in his house. Gov[ernmen]t House where S:W.W*5 lives is a new

building for the most part & occupies the site of an old Convent in the garden of which is a fine Norfolk Island Pine a good Date Palm & a capital Dragon's blood tree (Dracaena draco) -- We walked part of the way up the hill & found Cerastium gibraltaricum forming great white snow-like masses, & a little of Linaria tristis, not yet in flower. Descended by the old Moorish castle & saw the several of the old Phytolacca trees with trunks curiously swollen at the very base & flattened out as it were on the ground. It is a very fast growing and soft-wooded tree. Hitherto the weather has been uninterruptedly splendid & not too hot. April 18. The steamer that was to have sailed for Tangier at 11 is put off till 12 & when we took a boat to embark we found her tugging a vessell[sic] out of the bay! -- which led to 2 hours more delay & our consequent non arrival at Tangier till the gates were closed. The Capt[ain] thereafter would not communicate with the shore till we had agreed to pay 4 dollars to have the gates opened. to so that he might

get the health officer to permit the passengers landing: meanwhile we had to wait on board shivering with cold & a heavy dew forming -- then there was the difficulty of getting our things (chest of papers we had bought at Gibraltar) through the Custom House, which was overcome by my sending a note to Sir J. Hay*6 who kindly sent down his interpreter to pass them, & we got to the hotel by 10am, very hungry having had nothing to eat since 9pm. Maw*7 we found delighted to see us, he had made two expeditions to the South[?] to find the magnificent Iris (of which Sir J.H.*8 had given us a flower) & found it on the second -- he had kindly put up some roots for me & you will recognize it amongst those sent to Kew in the 2nd box, by its very long leaves which are wrapt round the paper of roots (bulbs): he describes it as growing in sandy soil with organic matter -- amongst tufts of chamaerops
[The letter bears no valediction or signature but it is written in the hand of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. This transcription is a full and faithful reproduction of the letter, as it survives in the archive of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.]