When the little ships come up like this with either sail well out and square and their course laid straight before the general run of a fresh sea, rolling as they go, it is as though the wind had a friend and companion of its own, understanding all its moods, so easily and rapidly do they arrive towards the shore. A little jib (along this coast at least) is bent along the forestay, and the dark line of it marks the swing and movement of the whole. So also when you stand and look from along their wake and see them leaving for the horizon along a slant of the Levantine, with the breeze just on their quarter and their laden hulls careening a trifle to leeward, you would say they were great birds, born of the sea, and sailing down the current from which they were bred. The peaks of their tall sails have a turn to them like the wing-tips of birds, especially of those darting birds which come up to us from the south after winter and shoot along their way.
Moreover the sails of these little ships never seem to lose the memory of power. Their curves and fulness always suggest a movement of the hull. Very often at sunset when the dead calm reflects things unbroken like an inland pond, the topmost angle of these lateens catches some hesitating air that stirs above, and leads it down the sail, so that a little ripple trembles round the bows of the boat, though all the water beside them is quite smooth, and you see her gliding in without oars. She comes along in front of the twilight, as gradual and as silent as the evening, and seems to be impelled by nothing more substantial than the advance of darkness.
It is with such companions to proclaim the title of the land that one comes round under a point of hills and enters harbour.
|The Mediterranean|
To comprehend the accidents which have befallen the Maghreb it is necessary to consider its position and the nature of the boundaries which surround it. In order to do this one must see how it stands with regard to the Mediterranean and to the Desert.
Here is a rough map on which are indicated the shores of that sea, and to appreciate its scale it is easiest to remember that its whole length from the Straits of Gibraltar at M to the Levantine coast at A is well over 2000 miles. In this map those shores which are well watered and upon which men can build cities and can live are marked black. The great desert beyond to the south, which perpetually threatens the further shore and in which men can only live here and there in little oases of watered land is marked with sloping lines.