We formed a plan of visiting Africa with Sir W. Ingilby, Mr Mackinnon having left him and gone back to England. Mr Temple and Serfatti, a Jew whom we took as interpreter, embarked with us in a Tetuan bullock boat on 28th March. Two large sharks followed our boat from Gibraltar to the Bay of Tetuan—which the superstitious sailors assured us was owing to our having a person on board who certainly continued in an epileptic fit the whole way. Tetuan is about six miles from the sea; and the houses are all white, with flat roofs. Part of the chain of Mt. Atlas runs near to it; and the number of inhabitants is estimated at 16,000—although it was a more important place for some years after the Moors were driven out of Spain.

We were lodged in a tolerable house belonging to a poor man and his Portuguese wife—who we heard had since been murdered—and the next morning waited on the Governor, to whom at the same time it was the custom to make a present, with which we were already provided; and Serfatti, after making numerous strange gestures and prostrations, laid it at the feet of the Governor and his scribes as they sat on their Divan. We presented 2 Ibs. of Green Tea and two small loaves of white Sugar—which was considered a liberal offering.