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But while this is true, yet what are such petty vexations as smuggling and extradition; what is the million of dollars a year which it costs to keep Gibraltar; in a matter which concerns the majesty and the colossal pride of England – the sense of power to hold her own against the world? A hundred years ago Burke spoke of Gibraltar with exultation as "a post of power, a post of superiority, of connection, of commerce – one which makes us invaluable to our friends and dreadful to our enemies;" and the feeling has survived to this day. 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. The arms of Gibraltar are a Castle and a Key, to signify that it holds the key of the Straits, and that no ship flying any other flag than that of England can enter or depart except by her permission. But that power is already gone. England may hold the key of the Straits, but the door is too wide to be bolted. The hundred-ton guns of Gibraltar, even if aimed directly seaward, could not destroy or stop a passing fleet. I know this is not the limit of construction in modern ordnance. Guns have been wrought weighing a hundred and twenty tons, which throw a ball weighing a ton over ten miles! Such a gun mounted at Tarifa might indeed hurl its tremendous bolt across the Mediterranean into Africa. But Tarifa is in Spain, while opposite Gibraltar it is fourteen miles to Ceuta, a point not to be reached by any ordnance in existence, even if the last product of modern warfare were mounted on the height of O'Hara's Tower; so that a fleet of ironclads, hugging the African coast, would be quite safe from the English fire, which could not prevent the entrance of a French or German or Russian fleet into the Mediterranean, if it were strong enough to encounter the English fleet.
The reliance must be therefore on the fleet, not on the fortress. Of course the latter would be a refuge in case of disaster, where the English ships could find protection under the guns of the fort. But the fortress alone could not bar the passage into the Mediterranean.
As to the fleet, England has been mistress of the seas for more than a century; and yet it does not follow that she will always retain this supremacy. Her fleet is still the largest and most powerful in the world, and her seamen as skilful and as brave as in the days of Nelson; but the conditions of naval warfare are greatly changed. The use of steam for ships of war as well as for commerce, and the building of ironclads mounted with enormous guns, tend to equalize the conditions of war. Battles may be decided by the weight of guns or the thickness of defensive armor, and in these particulars other nations have advanced as well as England. France, Germany, and Russia have vied with each other as to which should build the most tremendous ships of war. Even Italy has within a few years risen to the rank of a first-class naval power, as she has some of the largest ships in the world. The Italia, which I saw lying in the harbor of Naples, could probably have destroyed the whole fleet with which Nelson won the battle of Trafalgar; and hence the Italian fleet must be counted as a factor of no second importance in any future struggle for the control of the Mediterranean.
And yet some military authorities think too much importance is attached to these modern inventions. Farragut did not believe in iron ships. He judged from his own experience in naval warfare, and no man had had greater. He had found wooden ships good enough to win his splendid victories. In his famous attack upon Mobile he ran his fleet close under the guns of the fort, himself standing in the round-top of his flag-ship to overlook the whole scene of battle, and then boldly attacked ironclads, and sunk them in the open bay. His motto was: "Wooden ships and iron hearts!" Ships and guns are good, but men are better. And so I do not give up my faith in English prowess and skill, but hold that, whatever the improvements in ships or guns, to the last hour that men meet each other face to face in battle, the issue will depend largely on a genius in war; on the daring to seize unexpected opportunities; to take advantage of sudden changes; and thus by some master-stroke to turn what seemed inevitable defeat into victory.
In the year 1867 I crossed the Atlantic in the Great Eastern, then in command of Sir James Anderson. Among the passengers was the Austrian Admiral Tegetthoff, who had the year before gained the battle of Lissa, with whom I formed a pleasant acquaintance; and as we walked the deck together, drew from him some particulars of that great victory. He was as modest as he was brave, and did not like to talk of himself; but in answer to my inquiries, said that before the battle he knew the immense superiority of the Italian fleet; and that his only hope of victory was in disregarding all the ordinary rules of naval warfare: that, instead of drawing up his ships in the usual line of battle, he must rush into the centre of the enemy, and confuse them by the suddenness of his attack where they did not expect him. The manœuvre was successful even beyond his own expectation. The Rè d'Italia, the flagship of the Italian Admiral, which had been built in New York as the masterpiece of naval architecture, was sunk, and the fleet utterly defeated! What Tegetthoff did at Lissa, the English may do in future battles. Of this I am sure, that whatever can be done by courage and skill will be done by the sons of the Vikings to retain their mastery of the sea. But it would be too much to expect of any power that it could stand against the combined navies of the world.
If Gibraltar be thus powerless for offence, is it altogether secure for defence? Is it really impregnable? That is a question often asked, and on which only military men are competent to give an opinion, and even they are divided. Englishmen, who are most familiar with its defences, say, Yes! Those defences have been enormously increased even in our day. In the Great Siege we saw its powers of resistance a hundred years ago. Yet Eliott defeated the French and Spanish fleets and armies with less than a hundred guns. Ninety years later – in 1870 – there were seven hundred guns in position on the Rock, the smallest of which were larger than the heaviest used in the siege. And yet since 1870 the increase in the size of guns and their weight of metal, is greater than in the hundred years before. In the siege it was counted a wonderful shot that carried a ball two miles and a half. Now the hundred-ton guns carry over eight miles. Putting these things together, English officers maintain that Gibraltar cannot be taken by all the powers of Europe combined.
On the other hand, French and German engineers – familiar with the new inventions in war, and knowing that they can use dynamite and nitro-glycerine, instead of gunpowder, to give tremendous force to the new projectiles – would probably say that there is no fortress which cannot be battered down. To me, who am but a layman in such matters, as I walk about Gibraltar, it seems that, if all the armies of Europe should come up against it, they could make no impression on its rock-ribbed sides; that only some convulsion of nature could shake its "everlasting foundations." And yet such is the power of modern explosives to rend the rocks and hills, with a new invention every year of something still more terrible, that we know not but they may at last almost tear the solid globe asunder. What wreck and ruin of the works of man may be wrought by such engines of destruction, it is not given us to foresee.
Meanwhile to the Spaniards the English possession of Gibraltar is a constant irritation. It is of no use to remind them that they had it once, and might have kept it; that is no comfort; it only makes the matter worse; for they are like spoiled children, who grieve the most for that which they have thrown away. Again it was offered to them by England, with only the condition that they should not sell Florida to Napoleon; but as he was then in the height of his career, they thought it safer to trust to his protection; albeit a few years later they found out his treachery, and had to depend on an English army, led by Wellington, to drive the French out of Spain. And still these spoiled children of the South will not recognize the English sovereignty. To this day the King of Spain claims Gibraltar as a part of his dominions, though he recognizes it as "temporarily in the possession of the English," and all who are born on the Rock are entitled to the rights of Spanish subjects!
But whether Gibraltar can be "taken" or not by siege or storm, in the course of human events there may be a turn of fortune which shall compel England to surrender it. If there should come a general European war, in which there should be (what the first Napoleon endeavored to effect) a combination of all the Continental powers against England, she might, standing alone, be reduced to such extremity as to be obliged to sue for peace, and one of the hard conditions forced upon her might be the surrender of Gibraltar!
But while we may speculate on such a possibility of the future, it is not a change which I desire to see in my day. The transfer of Gibraltar to Spain might satisfy Spanish pride, but I fear that it would be no longer what it is if it had not the treasury of England to supply its numerous wants. The Spaniards are not good managers, and Gibraltar would ere long sink into the condition of an old, decayed Spanish town. Further than this, I confess that, as a matter of sentiment, it would be no pleasure to me to visit it if the charm of its present society were gone. I should miss greatly the English faces, so manly and yet so kindly, and the dear old mother tongue. 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. Let the Great Fortress remain as the grim monument of War, even when men learn war no more; as the castles on the Rhine are kept as the monuments of mediæval barbarism. If its guns are all silent, or unshotted, it will stand for something more than a symbol of brute force: it will be a monumental proof that the blessed age of peace has come. Then, if there be any change in the flag that waves over it; if the Red Cross of England, which has never been lowered in war, should give place to an emblem of universal peace; it may be a Red Cross still – red in sign of blood, but only of that blood which was shed alike for all nations, and which is yet to unite in One Brotherhood the whole Family of Mankind.
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.
On one of the last days I had engaged to take a midday dinner with the pastor of the Scotch Church, who lives in the southern part of the town. It is a pleasant walk beyond the Alameda over the hill, where you can but stop now and then to look down on the long breakwater of the New Mole, or into the quiet dock of Rosia Bay; or to hear the bugles waken the echoes of the hills. After dinner my friend proposed a stroll, in which I was glad to join him, especially as it took me to new points of view, from which I could look up at the Rock on its southern side, as I had already seen it on the north. Taking our way across the level plateau of Windmill Hill, past barracks and hospitals that are here somewhat retired from the shore, we descended toward the sea.
This end of Gibraltar is a great resort of the people in the summer time, and furnishes the only drive, unless they go out of the gates and crossing the Neutral Ground enter the Spanish lines. Here they are wholly within the Peninsula, and yet in a space so limited is a drive such as one might find along the Riviera. The road is beautifully kept, and winds in and out among the rocks, in one place crossing a deep gorge, which makes you almost dizzy as you look over the parapet of the little bridge which spans it. At each turn you get some new glimpse of the sea, and whenever you raise your eyes to look across the Strait, there is the long line of the African Coast. This is the favorite drive of officers and ladies on summer afternoons, since here they can escape the blistering sun, and get into the cool shadows.
As we come to Europa Point we are at the very foot of the Rock, and must stop to look upward; for above us rises the highest point of Gibraltar, O'Hara's Tower, which, as it is also nearest to the sea, is the one that first catches the eye of the mariner sailing up or down the Mediterranean. Here the old Phœnicians sacrificed to Hercules, as they were approaching what was to them the end of the habitable globe; and here, in later ages, a lamp was always hung before the shrine of the Virgin, and the devout sailor crossed himself and repeated his Ave Maria as he floated by.
Winding round Europa Point, we found our progress barred by an iron gateway; but rattling at the gate brought a sentinel, who, seeing nothing suspicious in our appearance, allowed us to enter the guarded enclosure. Here in this quiet spot, on a shelf of rock which hangs above the road, and is itself overhung by the mighty cliff which rises behind it and above it, is the cottage which is the Governor's summer retreat. The Convent answers very well for a winter residence; but in summer Gibraltar is a very hot place, as it has the reflection of the sun both from the sea in front and the Rock behind; and the Convent, standing on the shore of the bay, gets the full force of both. But there are cool retreats both north and south. On the north the townsfolk pour out of the gates to get under the giant cliff which casts its mighty shadow across the Neutral Ground. A little farther to the east, they come to the sands of a beach, which seems so like a watering-place in dear Old England that they have christened it Margate. So also, turning the corner at the south end of the Rock, one is sheltered from the heat in the long summer afternoon. The cottage is without any pretension to ornament; but as it has a somewhat elevated perch, like a Swiss chalet, it is a sort of eyrie, in which one can look down upon the sea and catch every wind that comes from the Mediterranean.
Just now this little eyrie was turned to another purpose – a place of confinement for Zebehr Pasha, a name that brings back memories of Egypt. An Arab sheikh, at the head of one of the most powerful tribes on the Upper Nile, he was at the same time one of the most famous slave-hunters of Africa. And yet such was his influence in the Soudan, that he was the one man to whom Gordon turned in his isolation at Khartoum, when neither England nor Egypt came to the rescue; and his one message to the authorities at Cairo was: "Send me Zebehr Pasha!" The request was refused, and we know the rest. Had it been granted, the result might have been different. But the British Government seemed to have a great fear of letting him return to the scene of his old exploits lest he should turn against them, and after the English occupation of Egypt, had him remanded for safe-keeping to Gibraltar. His detention is made as little irksome as possible. He is not confined in a prison. He is even the occupant of the Governor's cottage, and has his family with him. Looking up at the windows, I saw dark faces (perhaps those of his wives), that moved away as soon as they were observed. But to be comfortably housed is nothing without liberty. To the lion in captivity it matters little whether he is in a barred cage, or has the most luxurious quarters in a Royal Zoölogical Garden. Zebehr Pasha is a lion of the desert that has never been tamed. How he must chafe at the gilded bars of his prison, and look out wistfully upon the blue waves that separate him from his beloved Africa! He envies the eagles that he sees soaring and screaming over the sea. If they would but lend him their wings, he would "homeward fly," and mounting the swiftest dromedary, taste once more the wild freedom of the desert.12
But all things must have an end, and my stay in Gibraltar, delightful as it was, must be brought to a close. I was not eager to depart. So quickly does one become at home in new surroundings, that a place which I never saw till a few days before, now seemed like an old friend. My new acquaintances said I "ought to stay a month at least," and I was sure that it would pass quickly and delightfully. But travellers, like city tramps, must "move on," and it is certainly better to go regretting and regretted, than to carry away only disagreeable memories. I had taken passage for Oran on the Barbary Coast, when the Colonial Secretary, kind to the last, proposed to send me off to the ship in a government launch, an offer which my modesty compelled me to decline. But he insisted (for these Englishmen, when they do a thing, must do it handsomely) till I had to submit. That evening, while dining at the Hotel, a servant brought me word that a messenger had a special message for me, and when I presented myself, he put into my hands the following:
"Memorandum from the Colonial Secretary to the Captain of the Port.
"Dr. Field, an American gentleman, introduced here by Sir Clare Ford, is now staying at the Royal Hotel, and leaving Friday evening by the steamer for Algiers.