THE Atlantic is connected with the Mediterranean, as everybody knows, by a narrow channel of irregular configuration, the Strait of Gibraltar, which flows between the Rock of Gibraltar on the north, and the Rock of Ceuta, backed by the strange mass of Mons Abyla, or Apes’ Hill, on the south.
Gibraltar was anciently called Calpe; and Calpe and Abyla were the legendary Herculis Column?, or “Pillars of Hercules,” which marked the limit of the mythical hero’s conquests, and formed the supposed boundary of the Western world. The fable originated doubtlessly in the fact that the sun, or Hercules, to the navigators of the Mediterranean, sets behind these imposing promontories, dipping below “the rim of ocean” as if to disappear for ever!
The first Greek author who mentions the famous Pillars is the poet Pindar. He speaks of them as the point to which the renown of his heroes extended, beyond which no mortal, whether wise or foolish, could advance. As thus in his 3rd Olympic:—
“As water’s vital stream all things surpass,
As gold’s all-worshipped ore
Holds amid fortune’s stores the highest class;
So to that distant shore,
To where the pillars of Alcides rise,
Fame’s utmost boundaries,
Theron, pursuing his successful way,
Hath deckt with glory’s brightest ray
His lineal virtues. Farther to attain,
Wise and unwise, with me despair, th’ attempt were vain.”
In the time of Herodotus they formed a perfectly familiar position; and they did not long remain the ne plus ultra of human enterprise, the Ph?nician mariners sailing far beyond them, and reaching the coast of Britain. Even in the days of Strabo, however, a good deal of confusion prevailed in the minds of men respecting these Pillars. He tells us that some supposed them to be islands, others rocky headlands; both rising sheer out of the sea like{118} colossal columns. Others expected to find them indicated by cities, or columns, or statues, erected either by Hercules himself as the proud memorials of his westward conquest, or by the Tyrian seamen, dedicated to their tutelary god to commemorate the farthest limit of their discoveries. Later writers indulged in various conjectures. Pliny records the myth that Hercules rent asunder the rocks which had previously divided the Mediterranean from the ocean; while another legend asserted that he had narrowed the strait in order to exclude the sea-monsters which had hitherto forced their way from the ocean into the Mediterranean.
Let us turn from ancient fables to modern facts. The voyager who now approaches the Strait sees on the one hand the picturesque coast of Spain, with its green slopes and mountains of purple splendour, and on the other the low sandy shores of Africa, suddenly broken up by the heights of Ceuta. Gibraltar towers before him a narrow promontory of rock, facing the sea with gloomy precipices, and connected with the mainland by a low sandy isthmus. The Bay is on the western side of the promontory, which there assumes a striking and romantic appearance. Along the whole face of the lofty cliff, tier after tier, stretch ranges of formidable batteries, with the town of Gibraltar lying sheltered at the northern end. From every nook and every coign of vantage bristle heavy cannon. The midway slope, from the town to the summit of the great Rock, is occupied by white barracks and pleasant villas, which rest in the shadow of leafy groves. The eastern side, however, is one unbroken mass of precipice, relieved by none of those indications of peaceful civilization.
The three principal points of the rocky ridge to which we have alluded, are the Rock Mortar, north, 1350 feet; the Signal, in the centre, 1276 feet; the Sugar-loaf Point, south, 1439 feet. The length of this ridge, which consists of limestone, completely honeycombed with caverns, is about two miles and three-quarters, with an average breadth of one half to three-quarters of a mile, and a circumference of about seven miles.
The north face of the Rock overlooks the sandy isthmus of the Neutral Ground; but at the north-west angle a line of fortifications separates it from the shore. To the south a rapid slope extends from Sugar-loaf Point to the oval-shaped platform of{120} Windmill Hill, below which the steep crags of Europa extend into the sea. At the north-west corner of the Rock the town is defended by the formidable Lower Lines; and thence a continuous series of defensive works stretches along the western front, and round the southern side of the Rock, until terminated by precipitous and inaccessible heights. This grand range of batteries, bastions, and ravelins is now armed with upwards of one thousand guns.
To the west lies the Bay, which measures nearly eight miles and a half in length, and upwards of five in breadth; its circuit being between thirty and forty miles. On its western curve, facing the town of Gibraltar, is situated the Spanish town of Algesiras. It boldly indents the shore on the north of the famous Strait, which extends, we may add, from Cape Spartel to Ceuta, on the African coast, and Cape Trafalgar to Europa Point, on the Spanish side. Its length is about thirty-six miles, its average breadth from fifteen to twenty.
The voyager, as his ship passes under the Rock, comes to regard it as one immense mass of fortifications, which Nature seems specially to have constructed for the reception of artillery. Batteries frown on its precipitous sides; batteries crown its rugged summit; batteries line the water’s edge; and batteries project audaciously even into the very sea. Such is the Old Mole, or “Devil’s Tongue,” which played so famous a part in the celebrated siege, and received from the Spaniards its expressive though certainly too emphatic appellation. Half-way up the slope may be seen the walls of the old Moorish castle. To the right, the irregular buildings of the town, “of all imaginable shapes and colours,” are clustered in picturesque variety at the foot of the precipices. To complete the picture, the Bay is studded with numerous craft, from the stately man-of-war and the great India-bound steamer, to the smart-looking felucca which spreads its lateen-sails to the Mediterranean breeze.
On landing, the traveller pushes his way through a motley crowd, crosses the double enceinte, ditches, and drawbridge, and enters the market-place, an open area surrounded by barracks, four, five, and six stories high. Here are to be seen a throng of interesting characters: Algerians and Morocco merchants, with half-naked legs, slippered feet, their shoulders wrapped in their large white bernouse,{122} and their head crowned with the turban or tarbouche; Jews, with venerable beards, black robes, and pointed bonnets; the turbaned Moors, with loose flowing robes, and vests and trousers of crimson cloth; and Spanish peasants, with velvet breeches and leggings of embroidered leather, and the navaja, or knife, thrust into their tight crimson sash. Among these the English soldier winds his way, neat, erect, and clean-shaven, as on parade in St. James’s Park; or the Spanish lady lightly treads, her face concealed by her black silk mantilla, and her hand fluttering the inevitable fan.
Gibraltar has no public buildings of architectural importance; it is essentially a garrison town, a fortified post, in which art and beauty are subordinated to the useful. Except, indeed, at one spot, the Garden, or Alameda—one of the most charming promenades in the world—which extends from the sea-wall to the base of the precipices, formerly known as the “Red Sands.” Here blooms a garden which is truly “a miracle.” The sub-tropical flora is displayed in all its magnificent variety. A forest of aloe and cactus, of cistus and sweet-scented broom, clothes the rugged flanks and steep declivities of the mountain, if such it may be called. The winding alleys creep in and out of masses of rose-trees and flowering geraniums; while tall pines, huge mimosas, arbutes, and pepper-plants spread a pleasant shade around. Through these thick screens of verdure a glimpse is here and there obtained of the mast-studded harbour, and the shining waters of the Bay, and the azure hills beyond. Is it possible to conceive of a spot more enchanting? The great defect in landscapes on the border of the sea is, as a French writer remarks, the want of greensward and leafy trees. But here these charms are combined; the richness of a beautiful vegetation blends with the transparency of a sunny sky, and the sapphire light of a sea like that of Naples, to form a picture of supreme attraction.
The town of Gibraltar is of limited extent, and the peculiar nature of its position prevents it from enlarging itself in any direction. Its two or three long streets run parallel to the sea-lines, and are intersected at right angles by numerous narrow squalid lanes, which ascend the precipitous acclivity by flights of rugged steps, called “Ramps.” The general aspect of the town reminds the visitor of Landport; but these lanes resemble the wynds in{124} the “Old Town” of Edinburgh. “Toilsomely clambering to the top of the Ramps, we find,” says Bartlett, “still narrower lanes parallel to those below, resting on the bare hillside, but the houses having a fine look-out, and being often half buried in shrubbery and creepers, and peeping down upon the confused bee-hive below. Crouching thus, as it does, at the foot of the hot and arid rock, with its streets and alleys closely jammed together for want of room to expand, the town of Gibraltar is in summer excessively close and oppressive, and at no time can it be, we should imagine, an agreeable place of residence; for not only are its habitations confusedly huddled together, but for the most part exceedingly ill built and unsuitable to the climate.” This unfavourable opinion, however, is not confirmed by every traveller; and, as a matter of fact, for some months in the year the climate of Gibraltar is anything but unhealthy.
Byron called Valletta, the principal port of Malta, a “military hothouse;” but the term is much more applicable to Gibraltar, where the principal ornaments are cannon, and half the population soldiers or soldiers’ wives, or soldiers’ purveyors. If not the pomp and circumstance of war, at least its more prosaic side is everywhere visible. At every corner parties are{125} relieving guard; the patrol pace the crowded streets to the ear-splitting music of fife and drum; watches are regulated, morning and evening, by gun-fire; the gates are closed at a certain hour; peaceable amateurs sketching bits of the Rock are ferociously challenged by suspicious sentinels; you cannot move a step without abundant evidence that you are in a fortified town, where reigns an unrelaxing vigilance. Yet it is not without its semi-humourous, semi-picturesque aspects, such as Thackeray has drawn with his accustomed distinctness. Suppose, he says, all the nations of the earth to send suitable ambassadors to represent them at Wapping or Portsmouth Point, with each under its own national signboard and language, its appropriate house of call, and your imagination may figure the Main Street of Gibraltar. There the Jews predominate, and Moors abound; and from the “Jolly Sailor,” or the brave “Horse Marine,” where the people of our nation are drinking British beer and gin, you hear choruses of “Garryowen” or “The girl I left behind me;” while through the lattices of the Spanish wine-shops come the clatter of castanets and the jingle and moan of Spanish guitars and ditties. “It is a curious sight at evening, this thronged street,{126} with the people, in a hundred different costumes, bustling to and fro under the coarse glare of the lamps: swarthy Moors, in white or crimson robes; dark Spanish smugglers in tufted hats, with gay silk handkerchiefs round their heads; fuddled seamen from men-of-war or merchantmen; porters, Gallician or Genoese; and, at every few minutes’ interval, little squads of soldiers tramping to relieve guard at some one of the innumerable posts in the town.”
Thackeray refers in a similar strain to the Garden, or Alameda, which we have just described. It is, he owns, and he might well have said more, a beautiful walk; of which the vegetation has been as laboriously cared for as the tremendous fortifications which flank it on either side. On the one hand rises the vast Rock, with its interminable works of defence; on the other shines Gibraltar Bay, out on which, from the terraces, immense cannon are perpetually looking, surrounded by plantations of cannon-balls and beds of bomb-shells, sufficient, one would think, to blow away the whole peninsula. The horticultural and military mixture is, he continues, very queer: here and there temples and rustic summer-seats have been raised in the garden, but from among the flower-pots you are sure to see a great mortar peeping; and amidst the aloes and geraniums stalks a Highlander, in green petticoat and scarlet coat. Fatigue-parties are seen winding up the hill, and busy about the endless cannon-ball plantations; awkward squads drill in every open space; and sentries are marching to and fro perpetually. Yet the scene, says Thackeray, is always beautiful; especially at evening, when the people are sauntering along the walks, and the moon pours its light on the waters of the Bay and the hills and the twinkling white houses of the opposite shore. Then the place becomes quite romantic: it is too dark to see the dust on the dried leaves; the intrusive cannon-balls have for a while subsided into the shade; the awkward squads are at rest; even the loungers have retired,—the fan-flirting Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed dandies. From some craft nestling on the quiet waters comes the sound of fife or song; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the Mole, which is bound on some nocturnal voyage. You forget the squalor and motley character of the town, and deliver yourself up entirely to romance. The sentries pacing in the moonlight look like feudal{128} knights of old; and there is music in the old historic challenge, “Who goes there?”
“‘All’s well,’” says Thackeray with humorous exaggeration, “is very pleasant when sung decently in tune, and inspires noble ideas of duty, courage, and danger; but when you have it shouted all the night through, accompanied by a clapping of muskets in a time of profound peace, the sentinel’s cry becomes no more romantic to the hearer than it is to the sandy Connaught-man or the barelegged Highlander who delivers it. It is best to read about wars comfortably in ‘Harry Lorrequer’ or Scott’s novels, in which knights shout their war-cries, and jovial Irish bayoneteers hurrah, without depriving you of any blessed rest. Men of a different way of thinking, however, can suit themselves perfectly at Gibraltar; where there is marching and counter-marching, challenging and relieving guard all the night through. And this all over the huge Rock in the darkness; all through the mysterious zigzags, and round the dark cannon-ball pyramids, and along the vast rock-galleries, and up t............