18 



A NEW HISTORY OF 



often in want of a blanket. But, " God tempers 

 the wind," said Maria, " to the shorn lamb." 



It would be gratifying in the extreme, if we 

 could learn by any chance, at what period of time, 

 this interesting ape made its first appearance on the 

 rock of Gibraltar. If apes migrate from Barbary 

 to escape the winter season, then we may safely 

 conclude, that the apes, now prisoners in Gibraltar, 

 would make a similar movement, were it in their 

 power to do so. But they cannot join their 

 comrades, — for there is a fearful rush of water, 

 betwixt Calpe and Abylee. 



The Abbe Eaynal, in his History of the East 

 and West Indies, has given us an account of a 

 deplorable convulsion, which, in remote antiquity, 

 once took place beyond the " Pillars of Hercules/' 

 On the authority of Diodorus Siculus and Plato, 

 he tells of a large island named Atalantis. " It 

 was a region more extensive than Asia and Lybia 

 taken together, and it disappeared in an instant." 



Might not then, a convulsion of nature, in a still 

 remoter period, have separated Europe from Africa, 

 and have formed the present channel, betwixt the 

 far-famed Calpe and Abylse ? 



If we had proof sufficient, that such a convulsion 

 ever did occur, the location of apes in Gibraltar 

 would no longer be a perplexing enigma. 



