Excursions in the mountains of Ronda and Granada, with characteristic sketches of the inhabitants of southern Spain, vol. 2/2

by C. Rochfort‏ Scott

At the southern extremity of the city a low range of hills begins, which stretches for a mile and a half towards the sea. The causeway to Cadiz, however, is directed straight upon the Torre Gorda, standing upon the shore more to the westward, and three miles distant from the town of San Fernando.

Here commences the narrow sandy isthmus that connects the point of land on which Cadiz is built with the Isla. It is five miles long, and in some places so narrow, that the waves of the Atlantic on one side, and those of the bay of Cadiz on the other, reach the walls of the causeway. About half way between the Torre Gorda and Cadiz, the isthmus is cut across by a fort called the Cortadura, beyond which it becomes much wider.

At five miles to the eastward of the Torre Gorda, or Tower of Hercules, as it is also called, is the mouth of the Santi Petri river, and four miles only beyond it is the Vigia de Barrosa; so that the distance from thence to Cadiz is almost doubled by making the détour by Chiclana. It is more than probable, therefore, that the Romans had a military post, commanding a flying bridge, at the mouth of the river; for, in the Itinerary of Antoninus, the coast-road from Calpe to Gades was not directed from Mergablo “ad pontem,” as in the route laid down from Gades to Hispalis (Seville), but “ad Herculem;"—that is, it may be presumed, to the temple of Hercules,[28] situated, according to common tradition, on a part of the coast near the mouth of the Santi Petri river, over which the waves of the Atlantic now roll unobstructed; and the supposed site of which temple is the same distance from Cadiz as the bridge of Zuazo, thereby agreeing with the Roman Itineraries.

At the distance of 1200 yards from the river’s mouth a rocky islet rises from the sea, bearing on its scarped sides the inapproachable little castle of Santi Petri, the bleached walls of which are said to have been built from the ruins of the famed temple of Hercules.

Contemptible as this isolated fortress appears to be, as well from its size as from any thing that art has done for it, the fate of Cadiz, nevertheless, depends in a great measure upon its preservation; since, from the command the castle possesses of the entrance of the river, an enemy, who may gain possession of it, is enabled to force the passage of the stream under its protecting fire, and take in reverse all the defenses of the Isla de Leon. Cadiz would thereby be reduced to its own resources; and strong as Cadiz is, yet, like all fortresses defended only by art, it must eventually fall.

The surrender of the castle of Santi Petri to the French, in the siege of 1823, occasioned the immediate fall of Cadiz, its defenders seeing that further resistance would be unavailing; whereas, the capture of the Trocadero, about which so much was thought, did little towards the reduction of the place. Indeed, the Trocadero was in possession of the enemy during the whole period of the former siege, 1810-12.

CHAPTER III.

CADIZ—ITS FOUNDATION—VARIOUS NAMES—PAST PROSPERITY—MADE A FREE PORT IN THE HOPE OF RUINING THE TRADE OF GIBRALTAR—UNJUST RESTRICTIONS ON THE COMMERCE OF THE BRITISH FORTRESS—DESCRIPTION OF CADIZ—ITS VAUNTED AGREMENS—SOCIETY—MONOTONOUS LIFE—CATHEDRAL—ADMIRABLY BUILT SEA WALL—NAVAL ARSENAL OF LA CARRACA—ROAD TO XERES—PUERTO REAL—PUERTO DE SANTA MARIA—XERES—ITS FILTH—WINE STORES—METHOD OF PREPARING WINE—DOUBTS OF THE ANCIENT AND DERIVATION OF THE PRESENT NAME OF XERES—CARTHUSIAN CONVENT—GUADALETE—BATTLE OF XERES.

THE date of the foundation of Cadiz is lost in the impenetrable chaos of heathen mythology. One of the numerous conquerors, distinguished by the general name of Hercules, who, in early ages, carried their victorious arms to the remotest extremities of Europe, appears to have erected a temple at the westernmost point of the rocky ledge on which Cadiz now stands; and round this temple, doubtless, a town gradually sprung up. But the place came only to be known and distinguished by the name Gadira, when the commercial enterprise of the Phœnicians led them to make a settlement on this defensible island; and the foundation of the temple dedicated to Hercules, which Strabo describes as situated at the eastern extremity of the same island, “where it is separated from the continent by a strait only about a stadium in width,” is ascribed to Pygmalion, nearly nine centuries before the Christian era.

Gadira, or Gades, to which the name now became corrupted, was the first town of Spain forcibly occupied by the Carthagenians, who, throwing off the mask of friendship, took possession of it about the year B.C. 240. It was the last place that afforded them a refuge in the war which shortly followed with the Romans, into whose hands it fell, B.C. 203. From the Romans it afterwards received the name of Augusta Julia, probably from its adherence to the cause of Cæsar, who restored to the temple of Hercules the treasures of which it had been plundered during the civil wars that had previously distracted the country. But its old name, altered apparently to its present orthography by the Moors, seems always to have prevailed.