Fri 24. [24 January 1902] Very late for breakfast. Photographed
Margaret, then we went out, strolled up to the Barracca and down to
the harbour coming up by the steep gully leading to the station. The
women wear a black skirt and an odd headdress like an apron with
the gathers lying on one shoulder and the other side made with
whalebone or cardboard into a kind of hood. Probably Oriental but
tradition says that Napoleon when he was here ordered them to wear
it for 100 years as a punishment for their insufficient morals - which 100
years are up next year! Saw the metal hook through which the
middies have to pass. After lunch took train and went to Museo, the
last station on the line. Walked up to Imtarfa barracks from whence
we had a lovely view of Citta Vecchia. Walked back to C.V. and
through Rabato [Rabat] and trained home. The country all laid out in
terraced fields and all green and yellow with flowering oxalis. Almond
trees. Passed Sant Antonio where the governor has a nice garden
full of cypresses and the Stricklands a fine palazzo with a walled
garden. To tea with Mrs Evan Thomas and her sister Mrs Curry - nice
women. Margaret is to have their flat next year. M. dined with the
Admiral, Sir John Fisher. We read and wrote and she came in soon
after 11. Such a moon on the roof! the bear stands up on end like a
pale note of interrogation.