Gibraltar

“ Not one out of ten of its officers knows it. Gibraltar is a grand and grim practical joke; it is an armed foe like the army in Macbeth, who came in the semblance of a wood, or like the wooden horse of Troy that held the pick of the enemy's fighting-men. What looks like a solid face of rock is a hanging curtain that masks a battery; the blue waters of the bay are treacherous with torpedoes; and every little smiling village of Spain has been marked down for destruction, and has had its measurements taken as accurately as though the English batteries had been playing on it already for many years. ”

“ Everywhere—on hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the heights—everywhere you choose to look, Gibraltar is clad with masonry and bristling with guns. It makes a striking and lively picture from whatsoever point you contemplate it. ”

“ Let us turn from ancient fables to modern facts. The voyager who now approaches the Strait sees on the one hand the picturesque coast of Spain, with its green slopes and mountains of purple splendour, and on the other the low sandy shores of Africa, suddenly broken up by the heights of Ceuta. Gibraltar towers before him a narrow promontory of rock, facing the sea with gloomy precipices, and connected with the mainland by a low sandy isthmus. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Nine out of every ten of those who visit Gibraltar for the first time expect to find an island. It ought to be, and it would be one but for a strip of level turf half a mile wide and half a mile long which joins it to the sunny green hills of Spain. But for this bit of land, which they call "the Neutral Ground," Gibraltar would be an island, for it has the Mediterranean to the east, a bay, and beyond that the hills of Spain to the west, and Africa dimly showing fourteen miles across the sea to the south. ”

“ The common tour in Spain does not include Gibraltar. Indeed it is not a part of Spain, for, though connected with the Spanish Peninsula, it belongs to England; and to one who likes to preserve a unity in his memories of a country and people, this modern fortress, with its English garrison, is not "in color" with the old picturesque kingdom of the Goths and Moors. Nor is it on the great lines of travel. It is not touched by any railroad, and by steamers only at intervals of days, so that it has come to be known as a place which it is at once difficult to get to and to get away from. ”

“ Crouching thus, as it does, at the foot of the hot and arid rock, with its streets and alleys closely jammed together for want of room to expand, the town of Gibraltar is in summer excessively close and oppressive, and at no time can it be, we should imagine, an agreeable place of residence; for not only are its habitations confusedly huddled together, but for the most part exceedingly ill built and unsuitable to the climate. ”

“ To those who were watching from the top of the Rock, probably no event of their lives ever moved them so much as when they first caught sight of the English ships entering the Straits of Gibraltar. Men, women, and children, wept aloud for joy, for the coming fleet brought them life from the dead. And when it anchored in the bay, and the ships began to unload, they brought forth not only guns and ammunition, but more priceless treasures—beef, pork, butter, flour, peas, oatmeal, raisins, and biscuits, as well as coals, iron hoops, and candles! ”

“ Not an Englishman passes through the Straits whose heart does not swell within him to see the flag of his country floating from the top of the Rock, from which, as he believes, the whole world cannot tear it down. Every true Briton would look upon the lowering of that flag as the abdication of Imperial power.
But is not this an over-estimate of the value of Gibraltar to England? Is it worth all it costs? Would it weigh much in the balance in a great contest of nations for the mastery of the world? The object of this Rock-fortress is to command the passage into the Mediterranean. ”

“ Every body in Gibraltar is bent upon amusement: there are balls and concerts, and private parties, and an excellent library and a reading room, where I saw the English magazines fifteen days after they were published in London. Add to all these agremens, charming rides on the fine sands within the Spanish lines; walks in the Alameda, where there are parades and military music every day; boating in the bay; and excursions to Algesiras, Ceuta, and Tangiers; and news from England by the steam-packet{163} every month,—and it will be admitted that Gibraltar is not a place of military banishment. ”

“ The views on both sides are extremely fine; that on the left hand embraces Gibraltar’s cloud-wrapped peaks, the mirror-like Mediterranean, Spain’s prison-fortress of Ceuta, and the blue mountains of Mauritanía; the other looks over the silvery current of the Sogarganta, winding amidst the roots of a peculiarly wild and wooded country, and towards the rock-built little fortress of Castellar.
The road continues winding along this elevated heather-clad ridge for four miles, and then descends by rapid zig-zags towards Ximena. ”

“ So while I live I hope Gibraltar will be held by English soldiers. "After me the deluge!"
No: not the deluge, but universal peace! Let the old Rock remain as it is. Lover of peace as I am, I should be sorry to see it dismantled. It would not be the same thing if it were to become another Capri—a mere resort for artists, who should sit upon Europa Point, and make their sketches; or if lovers only should saunter in the Alameda gardens, whispering softly as they look out upon the moonlit sea. The mighty crag that bears the name of Hercules should bear on its front something which speaks of power. ”

“ Along the whole face of the lofty cliff, tier after tier, stretch ranges of formidable batteries, with the town of Gibraltar lying sheltered at the northern end. From every nook and every coign of vantage bristle heavy cannon. The midway slope, from the town to the summit of the great Rock, is occupied by white barracks and pleasant villas, which rest in the shadow of leafy groves. The eastern side, however, is one unbroken mass of precipice, relieved by none of those indications of peaceful civilization. ”

“ Passing on from the outposts to towns, or defences to highways, we must glance at such as guard the approaches to countries, or such as Gibraltar that commands the great waterway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Gibraltar is certainly the most complete and marvellous of all cliff castles. This is too well known to English travellers to need description here.
The French Gibraltar, Urdos, commands one of the passes through the Pyrenees. It is hewn out of the mountain in a buttress of rock, and rises in stages from the road to the height of 500 feet. ”

“ Most persons who have not visited Gibraltar entertain very curious notions respecting it; picturing to themselves a mere rock, bristling with cannon, and crowded with Barracks, Furnaces for Red-hot shot, and Powder-magazines. But, in reality, there are few places of the same limited extent that can lay claim to greater and more varied natural beauties. ”

“ Hence easy-going travellers, who are content to take circular tickets and follow fixed routes, give Gibraltar the go-by, though by so doing they miss a place that is unique in the world—unique in position, in picturesqueness, and in history. ”

“ THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR. The great Mediterranean Sea has its gate-way, nine miles wide, opening into the Atlantic, the gate-posts being the headland of Ceuta, on the African coast, and the famous rock of Gibraltar, in southwestern Spain, two natural fortresses facing each other across the sea. It is a singular fact that the African headland is held by Spain, and the Spanish headland by Great Britain,—this being a result of the wars of the eighteenth century. Gibraltar, in fact, has had a striking history, one worth the telling. ”

“ Gibraltar had been saved from the jaws of famine by the arrival of the English fleet. But as soon as it left, the Spanish ships remained masters of the bay, and the blockade was closer than ever. The garrison had had a narrow escape. That it might not be caught so again, the Governor, with his Scotch thrift, put his men upon a new kind of service, quite apart from military duty. The Rock is not wholly barren. There are many nooks and corners that are bright with flowers, and anything that the earth can yield will ripen under that warm southern sky. ”

“ There is no place of which it is more difficult to form an idea without seeing it, than Gibraltar. One naturally expects to find a fortress closing the Mediterranean with its celebrated galleries and enormous guns facing the Straits. ”

“ We are apt to consider the Gibraltar of to-day as occupying the same position to the Mediterranean as Queenstown does to the Atlantic, a place where passengers go ashore while the mails are being taken on board, and not so much for their interest in the place itself as to again feel solid earth under their feet. There are passengers who will tell you on the way out that you can see all there is to be seen there in three hours. As a matter of fact, one can live in Gibraltar for many weeks and see something new every day. ”

“ There are two things which surprize me in the many apprehensions which we have had about Gibraltar. The first is, the great diffidence manifested by such fears: Men must be far gone in distrust, before they could come to suspect, that their superiors could ever grow so much as indifferent about a place of such consequence to their country; and to suppose them capable of giving it up, is to suppose them capable of giving up Portsmouth, nay, England itself. ”

“ Opposite the present mighty fortifications of Helder, justly considered the Gibraltar of the North, which terminate the peninsula, lies a deep and splendid channel, bounded on the north side by the island of Texel, from which the famous passage gets its name. Through this ocean gateway, from time immemorial, a splendid procession of gallant ships and hardy men have gone forth to discover new worlds, to found new countries, to open up new avenues of trade with distant empires, and to uphold the honor of the Orange flag in desperate battles on the sea. ”

“ Introduction Gibraltar Background: Strategically important, Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain by Spain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht; the British garrison was formally declared a colony in 1830. In referendums held in 1967 and 2002, Gibraltarians ignored Spanish pressure and voted overwhelmingly to remain a British dependency. ”

“ This, the key to the Mediterranean, is one of the most important coast fortresses in the world. It has been in possession of Great Britain since 1704.
And when we reach Gibraltar the change of scene and life is abrupt and almost startling. If we go to Gibraltar by the road from Spain, we cross a narrow strip called Neutral Ground. It is arbitrarily fixed territory between Spanish and British ground. It is so low that it can hardly be seen from a distance. The effect is to make Gibraltar seem like an island. ”

“ As a second Gibraltar it must tend to secure Gibraltar itself; for if by the loss of that one place we could be excluded from the Mediterranean, it is difficult to say what sacrifices of blood and treasure the enemy would deem too high a price for its conquest. ”

“ When it arrived there, the Portuguese authorities resolved in a council of war to prevent its landing; they therefore sailed on to Gibraltar, and remained there in garrison about five years, which gave James Guidney a good opportunity of seeing every thing connected with that place.
Gibraltar is a town situated at the extreme south of Andalusia, in Spain, on a narrow neck of land running into the sea. It is built at the foot of a rock of the same name, and is strongly fortified both by nature and art. ”

“ We are now men learned in facts. Gibraltar being a place of great strength, it is assumed to be a place of great value, and we are perfectly content with having for the sake of it disturbed Europe, endured the abomination and the load of public debt, sullied our name, and squandered our treasure. ”

“ The Strait of Gibraltar is the gateway through which all ships must pass to gain the ports of southern Europe, and it is therefore a matter of moment to all the civilized world what nation holds possession there. Nature has made the rock a fortress, and military inventions have been added, through the centuries, to strengthen its defences. ”

“ On the western side successive undulations of the ground—range beyond range of low hills—melted away into the horizon, but as the eye turned northward it rested on a more varied picture. To the right of the Angera Mountains and Ape’s Hill a small dark islet seemed to stand out from the Spanish coast. In this we scarcely recognised Gibraltar, for the shadow of a cloud happened to rest on its grey limestone cliffs. ”

“ On the land side the Rock was impregnable; the guns of that day were useless against its defences; Gibraltar was ours to hold so long as we could command the sea.
At the peace of Utrecht, which ended the war of the Spanish Succession, we retained Gibraltar, and the people of England, impressed by the siege and the splendid defence of the Rock, resolved to keep it. It was only natural that Spain should wish to recover a fortress which was geographically part of her territory and of little value to us at the time. ”