CHAPTER I.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION.
HE Atlantic is connected with the Mediterranean, as everybody knows, by a narrow channel of irregular configuration, the Strait of Gibraltar, which flows between the Rock of Gibraltar on the north, and the Rock of Ceuta, backed by the strange mass of Mons Abyla, or Apes’ Hill, on the south.
Gibraltar was anciently called Calpe; and Calpe and Abyla were the legendary Herculis Columnæ, or “Pillars of Hercules,” which marked the limit of the mythical hero’s conquests, and formed the supposed boundary of the Western world. The fable originated doubtlessly in the fact that the sun, or Hercules, to the navigators of the Mediterranean,
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sets behind these imposing promontories, dipping below “the rim of ocean” as if to disappear for ever!
The first Greek author who mentions the famous Pillars is the poet Pindar. He speaks of them as the point to which the renown of his heroes extended, beyond which no mortal, whether wise or foolish, could advance. As thus in his 3rd Olympic:—