Our progress was rather slow, notwithstanding the fineness of the weather, probably owing to the tide being against us. In about two hours we passed the Castle of Santa Petra, and at noon were in sight of Trafalgar. The wind now freshened, and was dead ahead; on which account we hugged closely to the coast, in order to avoid as much as possible the strong heavy sea which was pouring down from the Straits. We passed within a very short distance of the Cape, a bold bluff foreland, but not of any considerable height.
It is impossible for an Englishman to pass by this place—the scene of the most celebrated naval action on record—without emotion. Here it was that the united navies of France and Spain were annihilated by a far inferior force; but that force was British, and was directed by one of the most remarkable men of the age, and perhaps the greatest hero of any time. [292b] Huge fragments of wreck still frequently emerge from the watery gulf whose billows chafe the rocky sides of Trafalgar: they are relics of the enormous ships which were burnt and sunk on that terrible day, when the heroic champion of Britain concluded his work and died. I never heard but one individual venture to say a word in disparagement of Nelson’s glory: it was a pert American, [293a] who observed, that the British admiral was much overrated. “Can that individual be overrated,” replied a stranger, “whose every thought was bent on his country’s honour, who scarcely ever fought without leaving a piece of his body in the fray, and who, not to speak of minor triumphs, was victorious, in two such actions as Aboukir and Trafalgar?”
We were now soon in sight of the Moorish coast, Cape Spartel appearing dimly through mist and vapour on our right. A regular Levanter [293b] had now come on, and the vessel pitched and tossed to a very considerable degree. Most of the passengers were seasick; the governor, however, and myself held out manfully: we sat on a bench together, and entered into conversation respecting the Moors and their country. Torquemada himself could not have spoken of both with more abhorrence. He informed me that he had been frequently in several of the principal Moorish towns of the coast, which he described as heaps of ruins: the Moors themselves he called Caffres [293c] and wild beasts. He observed that he had never been even at Tangier, where the people were most civilized, without experiencing some insult, so great was the abhorrence of the Moors to anything in the shape of a Christian. He added, however, that they treated the English with comparative civility, and that they had a saying among them to the effect that Englishman and Mahometan were one and the same: he then looked particularly grave for a moment, and, crossing himself, was silent. I guessed what was passing in his mind:—
“From heretic boors,
And Turkish Moors,
Star of the sea,
Gentle Marie,
Deliver me!”
At about three we were passing Tarifa, so frequently mentioned in the history of Moors and Christians. Who has not heard of Alonzo Guzman the Faithful, [294] who allowed his only son to be crucified before the walls of the town rather than submit to the ignominy of delivering up the keys to the Moorish monarch, who, with a host which is said to have amounted to nearly half a million of men, had landed on the shores of Andalusia, and threatened to bring all Spain once more beneath the Moslem yoke? Certainly if there be a land and a spot where the name of that good patriot is not sometimes mentioned and sung, that land, that spot, is modern Spain and modern Tarifa. I have heard the ballad of Alonzo Guzman chanted in Danish, by a hind in the wilds of Jutland; but once speaking of “the Faithful” to some inhabitants of Tarifa, they replied that they had never heard of Guzman the Faithful of Tarifa, but were acquainted with Alonzo Guzman, el tuerto, and that he was one of the most villanous arrieros on the Cadiz road.
The voyage of these narrow seas can scarcely fail to be interesting to the most apathetic individual, from the nature of the scenery which presents itself to the eye on either side. The coasts are exceedingly high and bold, especially that of Spain, which seems to overcrow the Moorish; but opposite to Tarifa, the African continent, rounding towards the south-west, assumes an air of sublimity and grandeur. A hoary mountain is seen uplifting its summits above the clouds: it is Mount Abyla, or, as it is called in the Moorish tongue, Gibil Muza, or the hill of Muza, from the circumstance of its containing the sepulchre of a prophet of that name. [295] This is one of the two excrescences of nature on which the Old World bestowed the title of the Pillars of Hercules. Its skirts and sides occupy the Moorish coast for many leagues in more than one direction, but the broad aspect of its steep and stupendous front is turned full towards that part of the European continent where Gibraltar lies like a huge monster stretching far into the brine. Of the two hills, or pillars, the most remarkable, when viewed from afar, is the African one, Gibil Muza. It is the tallest and bulkiest, and is visible at a greater distance; but scan them both from near, and you feel that all your wonder is engrossed by the European column. Gibil Muza is an immense shapeless mass, a wilderness of rocks, with here and there a few trees and shrubs nodding from the clefts of its precipices; it is uninhabited, save by wolves, wild swine, and chattering monkeys, on which last account it is called by the Spaniards, Montaña de las Monas, [296a] whilst, on the contrary, Gibraltar, not to speak of the strange city which covers part of it, a city inhabited by men of all nations and tongues, its batteries and excavations, all of them miracles of art, is the most singular-looking mountain in the world—a mountain which can neither be described by pen nor pencil, and at which the eye is never satiated with gazing.
It was near sunset, and we were crossing the bay of Gibraltar. We had stopped at Algeziras, on the Spanish side, for the purpose of landing the old governor and his suite, and delivering and receiving letters.
Algeziras is an ancient Moorish town, as the name denotes, which is an Arabic word, and signifies “the place of the islands.” [296b] It is situated at the water’s edge, with a lofty range of mountains in the rear. It seemed a sad deserted place, as far as I could judge at the distance of half a mile. In the harbour, however, lay a Spanish frigate and French war brig. As we passed the former, some of the Spaniards on board our steamer became boastful at the expense of the English. It appeared that, a few weeks before, an English vessel, suspected to be a contraband trader, was seen by this frigate hovering about a bay on the Andalusian coast, in company with an English frigate, the Orestes. The Spaniard dogged them for some time, till one morning, observing that the Orestes had disappeared, he hoisted English colours, and made a signal to the trader to bear down; the latter, deceived by the British ensign, and supposing that the Spaniard was the friendly Orestes, instantly drew near, was fired at and boarded, and, proving in effect to be a contraband trader, she was carried into port and delivered over to the Spanish authorities. In a few days the captain of the Orestes hearing of this, and incensed at the unwarrantable use made of the British flag, sent a boat on board the frigate, demanding that the vessel should be instantly restored, as, if she was not, he would retake her by force; adding, that he had forty cannons on board. The captain of the Spanish frigate returned for answer, that the trader was in the hands of the officers of the customs, and was no longer at his disposal; that the captain of the Orestes, however, could do what he pleased, and that if he had forty guns, he himself had forty-four; whereupon the Orestes thought proper to bear away. Such at least was the Spanish account, as related by the journals. Observing the Spaniards to be in great glee at the idea of one of their nation having frightened away the Englishman, I exclaimed, “Gentlemen, all of you who suppose that an English sea-captain has been deterred from attacking a Spaniard, from an apprehension of a superior force of four guns, remember, if you please, the fate of the Santísima Trinidad, and be pleased also not to forget that we are almost within cannon’s sound of Trafalgar.”
It was near sunset, I repeat, and we were crossing the bay of Gibraltar. I stood on the prow of the vessel, with my eyes intently fixed on the mountain fortress, which, though I had seen it several times before, filled my mind with admiration and interest. Viewed from this situation, it certainly, if it resembles any animate object in nature, has something of the appearance of a terrible couchant lion, whose stupendous head menaces Spain. Had I been dreaming, I should almost have concluded it to be the genius of Africa, in the shape of its most puissant monster, who had bounded over the sea from the clime of sand and sun, bent on the destruction of the rival continent, more especially as the hue of its stony sides, its crest and chine, is tawny even as that of the hide of the desert king. A hostile lion has it almost invariably proved to Spain, at least since it first began to play a part in history, which was at the time when Tarik seized and fortified it. [298] It has for the most part been in the hands of foreigners: first the swarthy and turbaned Moor possessed it, and it is now tenanted by a fair-haired race from a distant isle. Though a part of Spain, it seems to disavow the connexion, and at the end of a long narrow sandy isthmus, almost level with the sea, raising its blasted and perpendicular brow to denounce the crimes which deformed the history of that fair and majestic land.
It was near sunset, I say it for the third time, and we were crossing the bay of Gibraltar. Bay! it seemed no bay, but an inland sea, surrounded on all sides by enchanted barriers, so strange, so wonderful was the aspect of its coasts. Before us lay the impregnable hill; on our right the African continent, with its grey Gibil Muza, and the crag of Ceuta, to which last a solitary bark seemed steering its way; behind us the town we had just quitted, with its mountain wall; on our left the coast of Spain. The surface of the water was unruffled by a wave, and as we rapidly glided on, the strange object which we were approaching became momentarily more distinct and visible. There, at the base of the mountain, and covering a small portion of its side, lay the city, with its ramparts garnished with black guns, pointing significantly at its moles and harbours; above, seemingly on every crag which could be made available for the purpose of defence or destruction, peered batteries, pale and sepulchral looking, as if ominous of the fate which awaited any intrusive foe; whilst east and west towards Africa and Spain, on the extreme points, rose castles, towers, or atalayas, which overcrowed the whole, and all the circumjacent region, whether land or sea. Mighty and threatening appeared the fortifications, and doubtless, viewed in any other situation, would have alone occupied the mind and engrossed its wonder; but the hill, the wondrous hill was everywhere about them, beneath them, or above them, overpowering their effect as a spectacle. Who, when he beholds the enormous elephant, with his brandished trunk, dashing impetuously to the war, sees the castle which he bears, or fears the javelins of those whom he carries, however skilful and warlike they may be? Never does God appear so great and powerful as when the works of his hands stand in contrast with the labours of man. Survey the Escurial; it is a proud work, but wonder if you can when you see the mountain mocking it behind; survey that boast of Moorish kings, survey Granada from its plain, and wonder if you can, for you see the Alpujarras mocking it from behind. Oh, what are the works of man compared with those of the Lord? Even as man is compared with his Creator. Man builds pyramids, and God builds pyramids; the pyramids of man are heaps of shingles, tiny hillocks on a sandy plain; the pyramids of the Lord are Andes and Indian hills. Man builds walls, and so does his Master; but the walls of God are the black precipices of Gibraltar and Horneel, eternal, indestructible, and not to be scaled; whilst those of man can be climbed, can be broken by the wave, or shattered by the lightning or the powder blast. Would man display his power and grandeur to advantage, let him flee far from the hills; for the broad pennants of God, even his clouds, float upon the tops of the hills, and the majesty of God is most manifest among the hills. Call Gibraltar the hill of Tarik or Hercules, if you will; but gaze upon it for a moment, and you will call it the hill of God. Tarik and the old giant may have built upon it; but not all the dark race of whom Tarik was one, nor all the giants of old renown of whom the other was one, could have built up its crags or chiselled the enormous mass to its present shape.