midday
We could make out no houses at all , but he told us the town lay in the middle of the forest , and added some curious particulars as how , lying on flat ground and within easy access of the sea , it could not exist at all but for the sufferance of the Spaniards on one side and of the Barbary pirates on the other , how both for their own convenience respected it as neutral ground on which each could exchange his merchandise without let or hindrance from the other , how the sort of sanctuary thus provided was never violated either by Algerine or Spaniard , but each was free to come and go as he pleased , etc. , and this did somewhat reassure us , though we had all been more content to see our destination on the crest of a high hill . From this point we came in less than half an hour to Santa Pola , a small village , but very bustling , for here the cart-road from Alicante ends , all transport of commodities betwixt this and Elche being done on mules ; so here great commotion of carriers setting down and taking up merchandise , and the way choked with carts and mules and a very babel of tongues , there being Moors here as well as Spaniards , and all shouting their highest to be the better understood of each other . These were the first Moors we had seen , but they did not encourage us with great hopes of more intimate acquaintance , wearing nothing but a kind of long , ragged shirt to their heels , with a hood for their heads in place of a hat , and all mighty foul with grease and dirt . Being astir betimes the next morning , we reached Elche before midday , and here we seemed to be in another world , for this region is no more like Spain than Spain is like our own country . Entering the forest , we found ourselves encompassed on all sides by prodigious high palm trees , which hitherto we had seen only singly here and there , cultivated as curiosities . And noble trees they are , standing eighty to a hundred feet high , with never a branch , but only a great spreading crown of leaves , with strings of dates hanging down from their midst . Beneath , in marshy places , grew sugar-canes as high as any haystack ; and elsewhere were patches of rice , which grows like corn with us , but thrives well in the shade , curiously watered by artificial streams of water .