The Cruise of the Frolic

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The gateway is the pride of a Cadiz house. Many we passed were very handsome. It was pleasant to look through them into the interior, where the column-surrounded patios with cool, sparkling fountains in their centres, and shrubs and flowers of every hue, were indeed most refreshing to the senses. Every house is a square, with one or more patios in the centre, their only roof the bright blue sky. Into this court of columns all the rooms of the house open. Shade and coolness are the great things sought for in that clime.

We wandered up and down the narrow streets till we began to wish that some one would take compassion on us and ask us in; but nobody did, and our only satisfaction was the belief that we created a mighty sensation in the bosoms of numberless lovely damsels whose bright eyes we saw flashing at us through the thickly-barred jalouses.

“Ah, my good fellows, but you did not see their small noses, thick lips, and swarthy skins,” observed that unsentimental fellow, Bubble, thus cruelly depriving us of the only consolation we enjoyed. The fact was that at that early hour of the day no one goes abroad who can stay at home, except, as the Spaniards say, dogs and Englishmen, putting the canine tribe before the biped. Fatigue drove us into a café, where we took some refreshment, and in the evening we were somewhat repaid by watching the crowds of bewitching damsels and gay cavaliers, who sauntered forth to enjoy the cool air, and each other’s conversation.

Cadiz is joined to the mainland by a narrow strip of sand, deprived of which it would be an island. Opposite to it, across the bay, is Port St. Mary’s, the port of Xeres, where the sherry wine is embarked.

The next day we visited that place to taste some of its celebrated wines. We were much captivated with some deliciously dry Mansanilla, inferior as it is in flavour, however, to the still more valuable Amontillado.

But interesting as was our visit to Cadiz to ourselves, attractive as were its far-famed dames, and delicious as were its wines, my readers will undoubtedly rather hear some of the more stirring events of our cruise.

Away, away, once more we went, bounding over the blue ocean. We were, however, destined not to find ourselves so soon inside the Mediterranean as we expected. A dead calm came on, and for many hours we lay sweltering under a sun not much less fierce than that of the tropics.

It was very tantalising to remain thus almost in sight of the entrance of that classic sea we all wished to behold, and yet not be able to get there. Once within the influence of that strange current which from age to age has unweariedly flowed into that mighty basin, and yet never has filled it, we should have advanced with sufficient rapidity. Another whole day tried our patience, and Hearty had begun to declare that, after all, he thought the Mediterranean could not be worth visiting, when, on the morning of the third day, a breeze sprung up, and the cutter began to slip through the water towards the Straits.

The chief strength of the current is in the centre, far out of reach of shot and shell from the shore on either side. I mention this because many people have a notion that the fortress of Gibraltar defends the entrance to the Straits. The fact is, that the narrowest part is seven and a quarter miles wide; but that narrowest part we passed through at a distance of fifteen miles from Gibraltar, before we reached it. We did not, indeed, see the Rock before we had passed the Narrows.

The distance from the Rock to Ceuta, opposite to it on the African coast, is twelve miles.