THE PILLARS OF HERCULES. 87 



CHAPTER VI. 



ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR. 



The Mediterranean White, blue, green, purple Waters Gibraltar Its History Its first Inhabitants the Monkeys The 

 Moors The Great Siege preceded by thirteen others The Voyage of Sigurd to the Holy Land The Third Siege- 

 Starvation The Fourth Siege Red-hot balls used before ordinary Cannon-balls The Great Plague Gibraltar 

 finally in Christian hands A Naval Action between the Dutch and Spaniards How England won the Rock An 

 Unrewarded Hero Spain's attempts to regain It The Great Siege The Rock itself and its Surroundings The 

 Straits Ceuta, Gibraltar's Rival The Saltness of the Mediterranean "Going aloft" On to Malta. 



In this and following chapters, we will ask the reader to accompany us in imagination 

 round the world, on board a ship of the Royal Navy, visiting en route the principal 

 British naval stations and possessions, and a few of those friendly foreign ports which, as 

 on the Pacific station, stand in lieu of them. We cannot do better than commence with 

 the Mediterranean, to which the young sailor will, in all probability, be sent for a cruise 

 after he has been thoroughly " broken in >} to the mysteries of life on board ship, and 

 where he has an opportunity of visiting many ports of ancient renown and of great 

 historical interest. 



The modern title applied to the sea " between the lands " is not that of the ancients, 

 nor indeed that of some peoples now. The Greeks had no special name for it. Herodotus 

 calls it "this sea;" and Strabo the "sea within the columns," that is, within Calpe and 

 Abyla the fabled pillars of Hercules to-day represented by Gibraltar and Ceuta. The 

 Romans called it variously Mare Internum and Metre Nostrum, while the Arabians termed 

 it Bahr Rum the Roman Sea. The modern Greeks call it Aspri Thalassa the White 

 Sea; it might as appropriately be called blue, that being its general colour, or green, as 

 in the Adriatic, or purple, as at its eastern end : but they use it to distinguish it fronn 

 the " Sea of Storms "the Black Sea. The Straits" the Gate of the Narrow Passage," 

 as the Arabians poetically describe it, or the Gut, as it is termed by our prosaic sailors 

 and pilots is the narrow portal to a great inland sea with an area of 800,000 miles, 

 whose shores are as varied in character as are the peoples who own them. The Mediterranean 

 is salter than the ocean, in spite of the great rivers which enter it the Rhone, Po, 

 Ebro, and Nile and the innumerable smaller streams and torrents.* It has other 

 physical and special characteristics, to be hereafter considered. 



The political and social events which have been mingled with its history are 

 interwoven with those of almost every people on the face of the globe. We shall see 

 how much our own has been shaped and involved. It was with the memory of the 

 glorious deeds of British seamen and soldiers that Browning wrote, when sailing through 

 the Straits : 



"Nobly, nobly, Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away; 

 Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay ; 

 Bluish, 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay ; 

 In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray; 



* Vide "The Mediterranean," by Rear- Admiral Smyth. This is a standard work on all scientific points con. 

 uected with the Mediterranean. 



