A little farther on is the true highest point of the Rock, 1,430 feet; and yet a little farther, after a descent of a few feet, we come upon the tower known as O’Hara’s Folly, from which also the view is magnificent, and which marks the southernmost point of the ridge. It was built by an officer of that name as a watch tower, from which to observe the movements of the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, which, even across the cape as the crow flies, is distant some fifty or sixty miles. The extent, however, of the outlook which it actually commanded has probably never been tested, certainly not with modern optical appliances, as it was struck by lightning soon after its completion. Retracing his steps to the northern end of the height, the visitor historically interested in Gibraltar will do well to survey the scene from here once more before descending to inspect the fortifications of the coast line. Far beneath him, looking landward, lies the flat sandy part of the isthmus, cut just where its neck begins to widen by the British lines. Beyond these, again, extends the zone some half mile in breadth of the neutral ground; while yet farther inland, the eye lights upon a broken and irregular line of earthworks, marking the limit, politically speaking, of Spanish soil. These are the most notable, perhaps the only surviving, relic of the great siege. In the third year of that desperate leaguer – it was in 1781 – the Spaniards having tried in vain, since June, 1779, to starve out the garrison, resorted to the idea of bombarding the town into surrender, and threw up across the neutral ground the great earthworks, of which only these ruins remain. They had reason, indeed, to resort to extraordinary efforts. Twice within these twenty-four months had they reduced the town to the most dreadful straits of hunger, and twice had it been relieved by English fleets. In January, 1780, when Rodney appeared in the Straits with his priceless freight of food, the inhabitants were feeding on thistles and wild onions; the hind quarter of an Algerian sheep was selling for seven pounds ten, and an English milch cow for fifty guineas. In the spring of 1781, when Admiral Darby relieved them for the second time, the price of “bad ship’s biscuits full of vermin” – says Captain John Drinkwater of the 72nd, an actor in the scenes which he has recorded – was a shilling a pound; “old dried peas, a shilling and fourpence; salt, half dirt, the sweepings of ships’ bottoms, and storehouses, eightpence; and English farthing candles, sixpence apiece.” These terrible privations having failed to break the indomitable spirit of the besieged, bombardment had, before the construction of these lines, been resorted to. Enormous batteries, mounting 170 guns and 80 mortars, had been planted along the shore, and had played upon the town, without interruption, for six weeks. Houses were shattered and set on fire, homeless and half-starved families were driven for shelter to the southern end of the promontory, where again they were harried by Spanish ships sailing round Europa Point and firing indiscriminately on shore. The troops, shelled out of their quarters, were living in tents on the hillside, save when these also were swept away by the furious rainstorms of that region. And it was to put, as was hoped, the finishing stroke to this process of torture, that the great fortifications which have been spoken of were in course of construction all through the spring and summer of 1781 on the neutral ground. General Elliot – that tough old Spartan warrior, whose food was vegetables and water, and four hours his maximum of continuous sleep, and the contagion of whose noble example could alone perhaps have given heart enough even to this sturdy garrison – watched the progress of the works with anxiety, and had made up his mind before the winter came that they must be assaulted. Accordingly, at three A. M. on the morning of November 27, 1781, he sallied forth with a picked band of two thousand men – a pair of regiments who had fought by his side at Minden two-and-twenty years before – and having traversed the three-quarters of a mile of intervening country in swift silence, fell upon the Spanish works. The alarm had been given, but only just before the assailants reached the object of their attack; and the affair was practically a surprise. The gunners, demoralized and panic-stricken, were bayoneted at their posts, the guns were spiked, and the batteries themselves set on fire with blazing faggots prepared for the purpose. In an hour the flames had gained such strength as to be inextinguishable, and General Elliot drew off his forces and retreated to the town, the last sound to greet their ears as they re-entered the gates being the roar of the explosion of the enemy’s magazines. For four days the camp continued to burn, and when the fire had exhausted itself for want of materials, the work of laborious months lay in ruins, and the results of a vast military outlay were scattered to the winds. It was the last serious attempt made against the garrison by the Spaniards from the landward side. The fiercest and most furious struggle of the long siege was to take place on the shore and waters to the west.

And so after all it is to the “line-wall” – to that formidable bulwark of masonry and gun-metal which fringes the town of Gibraltar from the Old Mole to Rosia Bay – that one returns as to the chief attraction from the historical point of view, of the mighty fortress. For two full miles it runs, zigzagging along the indented coast, and broken here and there by water-gate or bastion, famous in military story. Here, as we move southward from the Old Mole, is the King’s Bastion, the most renowned of all. Next comes Ragged Staff Stairs, so named from the heraldic insignia of Charles V.; and farther on is Jumper’s Battery, situated at what is held to be the weakest part of the Rock, and which has certainly proved itself to be so on one ever memorable occasion. For it was at the point where Jumper’s Battery now stands that the first English landing-party set foot on shore; it was at this point, it may be said, that Gibraltar was carried. The fortunes of nomenclature are very capricious, and the name of Jumper – unless, indeed, it were specially selected for its appropriateness – has hardly a better right to perpetuation in this fashion than the name of Hicks. For these were the names of the two gallant officers who were foremost in their pinnaces in the race for the South Mole, which at that time occupied the spot where the landing was effected; and we are not aware that history records which was the actual winner. It was on the 23rd of July, 1704, as all the world knows, that these two gallant seamen and their boats’ crews made their historic leap on shore; and after all, the accident which had preserved the name of one of them is not more of what is familiarly called a “fluke” than the project of the capture itself, and the retention of the great fortress when captured. It is almost comic to think that when Sir George Rooke sailed from England, on the voyage from which he returned, figuratively speaking, with the key of the Mediterranean in his pocket, he had no more notion of attacking Gibraltar than of discovering the North-West Passage. He simply went to land England’s candidate for the Spanish throne, “King Charles III.,” at Lisbon; which service performed, he received orders from the English Government to sail to the relief of Nice and Villa Franca, which were supposed to be in danger from the French, while at the same time he was pressed by Charles to “look round” at Barcelona, where the people, their aspirant-sovereign thought, were ready to rise in his favor. Rooke executed both commissions. That is to say, he ascertained that there was nothing for him to do in either place – that Barcelona would not rise, and that Nice was in no danger of falling; and the admiral accordingly dropped down the Mediterranean towards the Straits – where he was joined by Sir Cloudesley Shovel with another squadron – with the view of intercepting the Brest Fleet of France, which he had heard was about to attempt a junction with that of Toulon. The Brest Fleet, however, he found had already given him the slip, and thus it came about that on the 17th of July these two energetic naval officers found themselves about seven leagues to the east of Tetuan with nothing to do. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the attack on Gibraltar was decreed as the distraction of an intolerable ennui. The stronghold was known to be weakly garrisoned, though, for that time, strongly armed; it turned out afterwards that it had only a hundred and fifty gunners to a hundred guns, and it was thought possible to carry the place by a coup-de-main. On the 21st the whole fleet came to anchor in Gibraltar Bay. Two thousand men under the Prince of Hesse were landed on what is now the neutral ground, and cut off all communication with the mainland of Spain. On the 23rd Rear-Admirals Vanderdussen and Byng (the father of a less fortunate seaman) opened fire upon the batteries, and after five or six hours’ bombardment silenced them, and Captain Whittaker was thereupon ordered to take all the boats, filled with seamen and marines, and possess himself of the South Mole Head. Captains Jumper and Hicks were, as has been said, in the foremost pinnaces, and were the first to land. A mine exploded under their feet, killing two officers and a hundred men, but Jumper and Hicks pressed on with their stout followers, and assaulted and carried a redoubt which lay between the Mole and the town. Whereupon the Spanish Governor capitulated, the gates on the side of the isthmus were thrown open to the Prince of Hesse and his troops, and Gibraltar was theirs. Or rather it was not theirs, except by the title of the “man in possession.” It was the property of his Highness the Archduke Charles, styled his Majesty King Charles III. of Spain, and had he succeeded in making good that title in arms, England should, of course, have had to hand over to him the strongest place in his dominions, at the end of the war. But she profited by the failure of her protégé. The war of the Spanish Succession ended in the recognition of Philip V.; and almost against the will of the nation – for George I. was ready enough to give it up, and the popular English view of the matter was that it was “a barren rock, an insignificant fort, and a useless charge” – Gibraltar remained on her hands.

Undoubtedly, the King’s Bastion is the center of historic military interest in Gibraltar, but the line-wall should be followed along its impregnable front to complete one’s conception of the sea defenses of the great fortress. A little farther on is Government House, the quondam convent, which now forms the official residence of the Governor; and farther still the landing-place, known as Ragged Staff Stairs. Then Jumper’s Bastion, already mentioned; and then the line of fortification, running outwards with the coast line towards the New Mole and landing-place, returns upon itself, and rounding Rosia Bay trends again southward towards Buena Vista Point. A ring of steel indeed – a coat of mail on the giant’s frame, impenetrable to the projectiles of the most terrible of the modern Titans of the seas. The casemates for the artillery are absolutely bomb-proof, the walls of such thickness as to resist the impact of shots weighing hundreds of pounds, while the mighty arches overhead are constructed to defy the explosion of the heaviest shells. As to its offensive armament, the line-wall bristles with guns of the largest caliber, some mounted on the parapet above, others on the casemates nearer the sea-level, whence their shot could be discharged with the deadliest effect at an attacking ship.

He who visits Gibraltar is pretty sure, at least if time permits, to visit Algeciras and San Roque, while from farther afield still he will be tempted by Estepona. The first of these places he will be in a hurry, indeed, if he misses; not that the place itself is very remarkable, as that it stands so prominently in evidence on the other side of the bay as almost to challenge a visit. Add to this the natural curiosity of a visitor to pass over into Spanish territory and to survey Gibraltar from the landward side, and it will not be surprising that the four-mile trip across the bay is pretty generally made. On the whole it repays; for though Algeciras is modern and uninteresting enough, its environs are picturesque, and the artist will be able to sketch the great rock-fortress from an entirely new point, and in not the least striking of its aspects.

And now, before passing once for all through the storied portal of the Mediterranean, it remains to bestow at least a passing glance upon the other column which guards the entrance. Over against us, as we stand on Europa Point and look seaward, looms, some ten or a dozen miles away, the Punta de Africa, the African Pillar of Hercules, the headland behind which lies Ceuta, the principal Spanish stronghold on the Moorish coast. Of a truth, one’s first thought is that the great doorway of the inland sea has monstrously unequal jambs. Except that the Punta de Africa is exactly opposite the Rock of Gibraltar, and that it is the last eminence on the southern side of the Straits – the point at which the African coast turns suddenly due southward, and all is open sea – it would have been little likely to have caught the eye of an explorer, or to have forced itself upon the notice of the geographer. Such as it is, however, it must stand for the African Pillar of Hercules, unless that demi-god is to content himself with only one. It is not imposing to approach as we make our way directly across the Straits from Gibraltar, or down and along them from Algeciras towards it: a smooth, rounded hill, surmounted by a fort with the Spanish flag floating above it, and walled on the sea side, so little can its defenders trust to the very slight natural difficulties offered even by its most difficult approach. Such is Ceuta in the distance, and it is little, if at all, more impressive on a closer inspection. Its name is said to come from Sebta, a corruption of Septem, and to have been given it because of the seven hills on which it is built. Probably the seven hills would be difficult to find and count, or with a more liberal interpretation of the word, it might very likely be as easy to find fourteen.

Ceuta, like almost every other town or citadel on this battle-ground of Europe and Africa, has played its part in the secular struggle between Christendom and Islam. It is more than four centuries and a half since it was first wrested from the Moors by King John of Portugal, and in the hands of that State it remained for another two hundred years, when in 1640, it was annexed to the Crown of Castille. King John’s acquisition of the place, however, was unfortunate for his family. He returned home, leaving the princes of Portugal in command of his new possession; which, after the repulse of an attempt on the part of the Moors to recapture it, he proceeded to strengthen with new fortifications and an increased garrison. Dying in 1428, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward, who undertook an expedition against Tangier, which turned out so unluckily that the Portuguese had to buy their retreat from Africa by a promise to restore Ceuta, the king’s son, Don Ferdinand, being left in the hands of the Moors as a hostage for its delivery. In spite of this, however, the King and Council refused on their return home to carry out their undertaking; and though preparations were made for recovering the unfortunate hostage, the death of Edward prevented the project from being carried out, and Prince Ferdinand remained a prisoner for several years. Ceuta was never surrendered, and passing, as has been said, in the seventeenth century from the possession of Portugal into that of Spain, it now forms one of the four or five vantage-points held by Spain on the coast of Africa and in its vicinity. Surveyed from the neighboring heights, the citadel, with the town stretching away along the neck of land at its foot, looks like anything but a powerful stronghold, and against any less effete and decaying race than the Moors who surround it, it might not possibly prove very easy to defend. Its garrison, however, is strong, whatever its forts may be, and as a basis of military operations, it proved to be of some value to Spain in her expedition against Morocco thirty years ago. In times of peace it is used by the Spaniards as a convict station.

The internal attractions of Ceuta to a visitor are not considerable. There are Roman remains in the neighborhood of the citadel, and the walls of the town, with the massive archways of its gates, are well worthy of remark. Its main feature of interest, however, is, and always will be, that rock of many names which it thrusts forth into the Straits, to form, with its brother column across the water, the gateway between the Eastern and the Western World. We have already looked upon it in the distance from El Hacho, the signal tower on the summit of the Rock of Gibraltar. Abyla, “the mountain of God,” it was styled by the Phœnicians; Gibel Mo-osa, the hill of Musa, was its name among the Moors; it is the Cabo de Bullones of the Spaniard, and the Apes’ Hill of the Englishman. It may be well seen, though dwarfed a little by proximity, from its neighboring waters; a curious sight, if only for its strange contrast with the European Pillar that we have left behind. It is shaped like a miniature Peak of Teneriffe, with a pointed apex sloping away on either side down high-shouldered ridges towards its companion hills, and presenting a lined and furrowed face to the sea. It is its situation, as has been noted already, and not its conformation, which procured it its ancient name. But however earned, its mythical title, with all the halo of poetry and romance that the immortal myths of Hellas have shed around every spot which they have reached, remains to it for ever. And here we take our farewell look of the Pillars of Hercules to right and left, and borne onwards amidstream by the rushing current of the Straits, we pass from the modern into the ancient world.