88 THE SEA. 



'Here, and here, did England help me how can I help England ?' sa y 

 Whoso turns as I, this evening, turns to God to praiae and pray, 

 While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa." 



And the poet is almost literally correct in his description, for within sight, as we enter 

 the Straits of Gibraltar, are the localities of innumerable sea and land fights dating from 

 earliest days. That grand old Rock, what has it not witnessed since the first timid 

 mariner crept out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic the Mare Tenebrosum, the 

 " sea of darkness " of the ancients ? Romans of old fought Carthaginian galleys in its 

 bay; the conquering Moors held it uninterruptedly for six hundred years, and in all for 

 over seven centuries; Spain owned it close on two and a half centuries; and England has 

 dared the world to take it since 1704 one hundred and seventy-three years ago. Its 

 very armorial bearings, which we have adopted from those given by Henry of Castile 

 and Leon, are suggestive of its position and value : a castle on a rock with a key pendant 

 the key to the Mediterranean. The King of Spain still includes Calpe (Gibraltar) 

 in his dominions ; and natives of the place, Ford tells us, in his " Handbook to Spain," 

 are entitled to the rights and privileges of Spanish birth. It has, in days gone by, 

 given great offence to French writers, who spoke of Vombrageme puissance with displeasure. 

 "Sometimes," says Ford, " there is too great a luxe de canons in this fortress ornee ; then 

 the gardens destroy ' wild nature ; ' in short, they abuse the red-jackets, guns, nursery- 

 maids, and even the monkeys." The present colony of apes are the descendants of the 

 aboriginal inhabitants of the Rock. They have held it through all vicissitudes. 



The Moorish writers were ever enthusiastic over it. With them it was "the Shining 

 Mountain/' "the Mountain of Victory." "The Mountain of Taric"* (Gibraltar), says 

 a Granadiau poet, "is like a beacon spreading its rays over the sea, and rising far above 

 the neighbouring mountains; one might fancy that its face almost reaches the sky, and 

 that its eyes are watching the stars in the celestial track." An Arabian writer well 

 describes its position : " The waters surround Gibraltar on almost every side, so as to 

 make it look like a watch-tower in the midst of the sea." 



The fame of the last great siege, already briefly described in these pages,f has so 

 completely overshadowed the general history of the Rock that it will surprise many to 

 learn that it has undergone no less than fourteen sieges. The Moors, after successfully 

 invading Spain, first fortified it in 711, and held uninterrupted possession until 1309, 

 when Ferdinand IV. besieged and took it. The Spaniards only held it twenty-five years, 

 when it reverted to the Moors, who kept it till 1462. " Thus the Moors held it 

 in all about seven centuries and a quarter, from the making a castle on the Rock 

 to the last sorrowful departure of the remnants of the nation. It has been said that 

 Gibraltar was the landing-place of the vigorous Moorish race, and that it was the point 

 of departure on which their footsteps lingered last. In short, it was the European tete 

 de pont> of which Ceuta stands as the African fellow. By these means myriads of 

 Moslems passed into Spain, and with them much for which the Spaniards are wrongfully 

 unthankful. It is said that when the Moors left their houses in Granada, which they 



* One of the earliest of the Moorish conquerors of Spain, who first fortified the Rock, 

 t Vide page 16. 



