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 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.
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