Gibraltar

by Henry M. Field

CHAPTER IX.
FAREWELL TO GIBRALTAR—LEAVING FOR AFRICA.

All too swiftly the days flew by, and the time of my visit to Gibraltar was coming to an end. But in travel I have often found that the last taste was the sweetest. It is only when you have come to know a place well that you can fully enjoy it; when emancipated from guides, with no self-appointed cicerone to dog your footsteps and intrude his stereotyped observations; when, in short, you have obtained "the freedom of the place" by right of familiar acquaintance, and can wander about alone, sauntering slowly in favorite walks, or sitting under the shade of the trees, and looking off upon the purple mountains or the rippling sea, that you are fully master of the situation. "Days of idleness," as they are called, are sometimes, of all days, at once the busiest and the happiest, when, having finished up all regular and routine work, and thus done his duty as a traveller, one devotes himself to "odds and ends," and gathers up his varied impressions into one delightful whole. These are delicious moments, when the pleasure of a foreign clime—

"Blest be the time, the clime, the spot!"—

becomes so intense that we are reluctant to let it go, and linger still, clinging to that which is nearly exhausted, as if we would drain the cup to the very last drop.

Such is the feeling that comes in these last days, as I go wandering about, full of moods and fancies born of the place and the hour. There is a strange spell and fascination in the Rock itself. If it be proper ever to speak of respect for inanimate things, next to a great mountain, I have a profound respect for a great rock. It is the emblem of strength and power, which by its very height shelters and protects the feebleness of man. How often on the desert, under the burning sun, have I espied afar off a huge cliff rising above the plain, and urging on my wearied camel, thrown myself from it, and found the inexpressible relief of "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land!" So here this mountain wall that rises above me, does not awe and overwhelm so much as it shelters and protects; the higher it lifts its head, the more it carries me upward, and gives me an outlook over a wider horizon. If I were a dweller in Gibraltar, I would seek out every sequestered nook upon its side, where I could be away from the haunts of men, and could "dream dreams and see visions." Often would I climb to the Signal Station, or O'Hara's Tower, to see the glory of the sunrisings and sunsettings; and, as the evening comes on, to see the African mountains casting their shadows over the broad line of coast and the broader sea.

Next to the Rock itself, the oldest thing in Gibraltar—the very oldest that man has made—is the Moorish Castle, on which the Moslem invader planted the standard of the Crescent near twelve centuries ago, making this his first stronghold in the land which he was to conquer. And now I must look upon its face again, because of its very age. American as I am, coming from a country where everything is supposed to be "brand new," I feel a strange delight in these old castles and towers, and even in ruins, gray with the moss of centuries. I know it is a "far cry" to the time of the Moors, but we must not think of it as a time of barbarism. The period in which the Moors held Gibraltar was that of the Moorish rule in Spain, when they were the most highly civilized people in Europe, and the Goths were the barbarians. In that day the old Moorish town must have been a very picturesque place, with the domes of its mosques, and the slender minarets rising above them, from which at the sunset hour voices called the faithful to prayer; and very picturesque figures were those of the turbaned Moors, as they reverently turned toward Mecca, and bowed themselves and worshipped.

Nor did the romance die when the Spaniards followed in the procession of races, for they were only less picturesque than the Moors. They too had their good times. A life which would seem tame and dull to the modern Englishman had its charms for the children of the sun, whether they were children of Europe or of Africa. When the church took the place of the mosque, mollahs and ulemas were replaced by priests and monks; and the old Franciscan friars, whose Convent is now the residence of the Governor, marched in sombre procession through the streets, and instead of the call from the minaret, the evening was made holy by the sound of the Ave Maria or the Angelus bell. And these Spaniards had their gayeties as well as their solemnities. They danced as well as prayed. When their prayers were ended, the same dark-eyed senoritas who had knelt in the churches sat on balconies in the moonlight, while gallant cavaliers sang their songs and tinkled their guitars—diversions which filled the intervals of stern and savage war. Out of all this strange old history, with many a heroic episode that still lives in Spanish song and story, might be wrought, if there were another Irving to tell the tale, an historical romance as fascinating as that of the Conquest of Granada. The materials are abundant; all that is wanting is that they be touched by the wand of the enchanter.

But as I have just now more freshly in mind the English history of Gibraltar, I leave the Spaniards and the Moors, and betake me to the King's Bastion, on which "Old Eliott" stood on the greatest day that Gibraltar ever saw. And here we must not forget the second in command, his brave companion-in-arms, General Boyd, who built the Bastion in 1773, and who, on laying the first stone, prayed "that he might live to see it resist the united fleets of France and Spain"—a wish that was gloriously fulfilled nine years later, when he took part in the immortal defence; and it is fitting that his body should sleep under his own work, at once the instrument and the monument of that great victory. Even the trees have a historic air, as they are old—at least many of them have a look of age. One would think that the constant firing of guns, the shock and "sulphurous canopy," would kill vegetation or stunt it in its growth. But there are many fine old trees in Gibraltar. Near the Alameda stands a magnificent bella sombra (so named because its wide-spreading branches are dark and sombre, and yet strangely beautiful), which must be very old. Perhaps it was standing a century ago, and heard all the guns fired in the Great Siege, as possibly a few years later it may have heard, across the bay and away over the Spanish hills, even the thunder of Nelson at Trafalgar.

WINDMILL HILL AND O'HARA'S TOWER.