240 A Ride to Trafalgar 
as it was on that day, the smoke of over 4,000 guns must have 
drifted right over the cliffs where I stood. 1 remember now many 
years ago an old Spaniard describing to me how as a small lad 
tending goats on the sierra he had heard the roar of the guns 
and seen the great column of smoke rising above the contending 
fleets, and as | surveyed the actual scene of that mighty conflict 
stretched out below me, | saw it in my imagination crowded with 
white-sailed line-of-battleships enveloped in drifting smoke and 
locked together in that death struggle which for over a century 
has secured for us the command of the sea. 
Nor did I fail to conjure up to myself the scene all along 
the coast below, strewn with wreckage and dead bodies, for many 
a crippled ship was driven ashore and totally lost in the gale which 
followed the battle. My companions, simple country folk, were 
sorely puzzled at my remaining so long in meditation and gently 
reminded me that they must leave me as they were bound to 
re-cross the Barbate before the tide rose. So I bade them farewell 
and, mounting my horse, rode homewards alone through the big 
stone pines, many of which must surely have been silent witnesses 
of the day of Trafalgar. 
