The next forenoon brought the ship into the Straits of Gibraltar, and the interesting scenery did a little towards relieving the ill-humor which had settled on all both fore and aft, in consequence of the events of the last twenty-four hours. The wind was from the eastward, dead ahead, and as the ship beat from shore to shore through its length of fifty miles, striking and constantly changing views were presented by the rugged African mountains on one hand, the more fertile Spanish hills on the other, and ahead, the noble and world-renowned Rock of Gibraltar, three miles in length and 1600 feet high. Its outlines well represent a crouching lion, an appropriate symbol of its silent batteries, ready at a moment's notice to pour forth destruction upon an approaching foe. A strong current runs almost always from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, though modified by an easterly wind, and this helped the "Dublin" to windward, so that at night she passed Gibraltar looming up high and dark against the starlit sky.
That evening the captain tried his usual panacea upon my moodiness, I being the only officer he seemed anxious to propitiate, for reasons best known to himself. His conversation comprised stories about "Mr. Jones," and explanations of the "philosophy of the thing" as applied to currents, which in this case he demonstrated, that as water cannot always run into a place unless some runs out, there must be a hole underneath the Isthmus of Suez to let it run through into the Red Sea. And then he evidenced that he was not insensible to the influence of the noble scenes and historical interest which had surrounded us that day, by remarking how much of a charm it gave to sea-life to visit such interesting localities, and he added: "How pleasant it is too, to think that we are going to visit the land where our Saviour was born!"
I was almost as much astonished by the fact of the captain's mentioning that name calmly and soberly, as at the information that Christ was born in Italy. I had already measured his stock of knowledge, and had received many similar pieces of information before, which, knowing the captain's conceitedness and temper, I thought it good policy not to contradict; though even my usual reply of, "Is it so, sir?" sometimes aroused his ire, as implying a doubt of his correctness in making assertions; such, for instance, as, that Gibraltar belonged to France, or that the clouds were six hundred miles above the earth, or that the moon had no influence over the tides. I felt inclined to try the experiment, if it was possible to convince him of an error, or rather to make him acknowledge one—a matter upon which I had great doubt. I cautiously said: "Christ wasn't born in Italy, was he, sir?"
"Of course not," said the captain; "haven't you read the Bible enough to know that? I mean Europe; doesn't Italy belong to Europe?"
"Yes, sir," I replied; "but I've always understood that Christ was born in Palestine, which is a country of Asia."
"Of course he was," said the captain. "I know that very well; and that's just what I meant to say. We're going to visit that part of the world where Christ was born. Europe, Asia and Africa make one hemisphere, don't they?"
"Yes, sir."
"And isn't America a separate one?"
"Yes, sir: one is called the Eastern, and the other the Western hemisphere."
"Of course it is," said the captain. "I believe if you got two ideas in your head at once, it would bu'st." He turned haughtily away as though he had convinced me of the ignorance of not knowing either where Christ was born, or which hemisphere the "Dublin" was sailing in; but for the next few days I heard nothing more about "Mr. Jones," "philosophy," Scripture or geography, but had a good share of harsh-sounding orders and snarling rebukes when about my work, and the reason of it I well understood.