Gibraltar, a lion couchant, head on paws, fronts the sea. Cross the bay from Algeciras, the lion rears its head—a lion no longer—the pillar of the coast of Europe, blue at first, then purple; when you are close in its shadow you look up at a grim gray mountain towering above you. It greets you like an old friend. You have known it under many names; first as Calpe under its first master, Hercules, for that glorious old fellow, the first “Great African Traveler,” was here. Wishing to show other travelers who should come after that the “inner seas,” where it was safe to sail, ended here, he took up a mountain and tore it in two to make the bounds; half he set down in Africa, on the south, half in Europe, on the north. These are the Columns of Hercules; the African column is Abyle; the European, Calpe.
“Ne plus ultra,” said Hercules, as he wrapped his lion’s skin about him and set sail for Libya to call on Atlas. Every time you write the sign for the dollar (
) you draw the Columns of Hercules and the scroll for his parting words, “Ne plus ultra.”
Carthage was here! The poor Carthaginians built a tower on Calpe, to watch for the dreaded Roman galleys sweeping down from Ostia, while in Rome’s senate implacable Cato thundered his eternal “Delenda est Carthago.” Of course the Romans were here,—it is impossible to escape them; wherever you travel in Europe or Africa you are always meeting those grave ghosts!
Tarik was here; he and his Berbers, sailing over from Morocco, landed on Calpe, and built a magnificent castle fortress to protect their retreat and keep open the way back to Africa. Moors and Berbers made a long stay in Europe; they held the Rock seven hundred years, until Moor and Mahomet were driven out by Ferdinand and Isabel,—a service Spain holds the Christian world has too soon forgotten. A pitiful flying remnant of the Moors of Granada took ship at Gibraltar and sailed back to Morocco, leaving behind them the imperishable Legacy of the Moor, taking with them the keys of their houses in that lost paradise, Granada. Since Tarik landed, the Rock has stood fourteen sieges, has passed from master to master, but this is still the Hill of Tarik (Jebel Tarik), though we pronounce it Gibraltar.
So, coming after Hercules, Carthage, Rome, Tarik, we are here! We landed at night. As we passed down the steamer’s companionway to the tug, the Kaiser roared a hoarse farewell, her screw beat the “inner sea” to a white lather. From the upper deck a girl’s handkerchief fluttered, a man’s voice cried “Good luck!” Two thousand Italian steerage passengers, the menace and amusement of the voyage, chaffed and laughed at us from the lower deck. For nine days the steamer Kaiser, sailing on even keel, had been all our world; a creature-comfortable world, with only too much beef, beer, and skittles.
“There are no boats but the German—except a few of the English—fit to cross the Atlantic,” a fat Hanoverian drummer said at dinner, that last evening on board; “Germans and English are the only sailors.”
Don Jaime, the Andalusian, who sat opposite, looked at him.
“Claro,” he assented, graciously, in Spanish, “but—do you happen to know how many Germans and English Columbus had with him on his caravel?”