Morning journal and courier., 1892-02-13

| said some Genoese fishermen were ship | wrecked here, and fastened to the rocks | like things of the sea, a thousand or so | years ago. Sometimes great columns of | stone, falling from a quarter of a mile | above them. crash through their white
 shells of houses and grind a score of souls | into the iinty shore. The thunders of
 seige have no terrors for them. They cannot be dislodged. And they remain there the only things of life on Gibraltar's 6 Mediterranean shore.
 Just opposite the "Northern Pinnacle, " on the western shore, the Old Mole or breakwater extends eleven hundred feet into the bay. Just one-hslf the distance from this.to Europa Point the New Mole has been pushed into the sea nearly one thousand feet. Here is safe anchorage for the entire merchant and battle ships of Great Britain. At any time several hun
 dred craft of all nations may be seen in
 the Bay of Gibraltar; while conveying or
 diverging towards and from the narrow
 strait dividing two continents are ever in
 view stately processions of the trade srgo- sies of the world; some under sails white as sea gulls' wings and some trailing be-
 hind their huge tunnels what from your
 dizzy height seem like delicately- -penciled
 fronds of shadow upon the radiant waters
 blue.
 Down there between the two moles you can see the fiat roofs of the city crouching
 beneath the crsgs. At its northern end.
 just abreast of the Old Mole, and we'll up the mountainside, which on the west is less precipitous than elsewhere, stands a huge Moorish tower, just twelve hundred and fifty years old, built by the first Moorish
 invaders. and the most ancient perfectly
 preserved relic of Moslem rule in Spain.
 T& l., n1. l.. IA A.
 though honeycombed by innumerable can non balls; while its great Tower of Hom- age is now A powder magazine. while mod ern barracks and officers quarters with pleasant gardens fill the area within its ancient walls.
 To the south Africa seems but step across a gleaming pool To the east there is only the vast Mediterranean, dotted with many strange and curious craft. To the west the sight ranges over a beautiful and picturesque harbor scene. with every man ner of ship that floats, from the levisthsn msn-of- war to the lateen sailed fellucs in cluding a half dozen American schooners and barks with their shapely hulls and slender spsrs. and rests beyond the waters of the bay upon the circling Spanish shore. There is Csbrita Point, darkening yrimly against a background of flame where the setting sun floods the entrance
 from the Atlantic. Around to the north
 west Algeciras ghostlike lifts through the
 purpling hall. To the north a score of villas and villages pink or white as the light and shadows chsngefully play upon them, show, like the ivory beds of a TO-
 ssry, against ranges of aloes and masses of vineyards; the whole with & back ground of billowy foothill, dark, then blue, then purple, and finally an opAline misty dream where the peaks of the Span ish sierras blend with the far horizon of the north.
 All this is what one can see al Fl Ha- cho upon the heights of Gibraltar; but what wraiths of history, mythic and real, crowd frum the past upon the wondrous scene, This spot where you stand, and towering Apes Hill, across the strait in Africa, were the olden Pillars of Hercu- les. Down beneath you at Europa Point is the very spot where the divine bull rested from his flight with Europa, 10 whom the continent owes its name. Just across the strait, at Cclta, the traitorous
 Count Julian, outlaw from Roderick's H.
 centious Toledo court, first betrayed Spain
 10 the Moslems. The resultant invasion
 nnder command of Tarek Ibn Zsyad, then
 chief of the garrison of Tangier, gave to
 the rock the name. Gibel-al- Tarek. noun
 tain of Tarek, corrupted to the Gibraltar
 of to day.
 Then for seven hundred years il was a
 mount of death and glory for SpAniArd
 and Moor in their desperate contentious;
 while the treasure and lives it has cost
 since first the crest of St. George waved
 above it, iu l104, would enrich and peo-
 pie kingdom. One knows snew with
 startling clearness the history of Euro
 pean and Moslem struggles in the mu-
 as, ..E. the sunset gun has belched its flame and thunder towards the red Atlantic's breast;
 the lights twinkle from the Spanish vil
 lages around the bay and, circling to the mountain's base, bring & rosy glow to city and harbor craft beneath. You wend your way downward to the terraced town
 past briskly moving sentinels crisp with duty and challenges, leaving the grim
 mountain top behind, melodious with
 bugle notes echoing and re-echoing their
 songful mimicry of war from hsrborside
 to darkened clefts of bleak and serried
 heights.
 If Gibraltar were not a unique and the
 most gigantic fortress in the world it
 would still be spot of rarest interest and charm to the traveller. The scenic
 beauties from any portion of the embat- tied mountain are not surpassed in the whole two thousand miles reach of the Mediterranean. Two continents and three kingdoms are here within cannon shot of wherever you may stand. The rides and drives into the most luIuriant and fruit ful portion of southern Spain, all within
 days journey, bring within observation
 and enjoyment every feature of high or low Spanish life which could be studied
 in a journey from France to Portugal.
 And then the rock and city of Gibraltar
 themselves, contrary to prevalent notions,
 are each in their way wonderful and win
 some studied of still and human life. The
 botanist can find upon the sides of this
 one rock over five hundred distinct species
 of vegetable life in flower, shrub, lichen, moss and vine. The tiny gardens are sblsze even in wiRter with gorgeous color
 and bloom. Far up the heights the walled and winding roadways are bordered with
 masses of green and blossom. The wash erwomen dry their clothes on hedges of geranium. The pIickly pear and cactus grow to enormous size The aloe rears its central shoots, with lateral branches. like spears of gigantic asparagus. Huge clean ders glow above every terrsced garden wall. The night blooming Cereus grows in splen- did luxurisnce, resembling mammoth wa te--lilies with delicate anthers of gold Everywhere with leaves of glossy green, flowers of bridal white and fruit of gold, the orange-tree, limiting of tropical cline, bestows its welcome shade and delicate scents, wanton in the prodigality with which all nature here seems to rival kisto- ric interest and grand, surpassing scene. And of the cityi It has twenty thou sand souls exclusive of the five to six thousand officers and men of the garrison. Terrace on terrace it threads along the wa ter's edge. II is a mass of archwsys, stairs, subterranean thoroughfares, spiral passages, yiaduots, vsulting footways, mar row vistas broken by quaintest corners, angles, balconies and roofs, and altogether the strangest, most curious and vtnsome | tumble of human habitations and thor | oughfares men ever built to shelter men and trade Then of the folk or Gibraltar;
 were you to get together from all spanish cities their most characteristic lowly; bring from Genoa and Naples their most pictur- esaue fishermen; hunt Tangier and FeI for | weirdest Berber, Kahbaple, Moor and Jew; and dragnet the entire Mediterranean | shoalf for waterside folk that looked the fisher. smugyler and pirate in one; and thread among all these the scarlet and blue of thousands of the soldisry and artillery men of the great fortress, you would still have a 10 more varied, chAngeful, weird and colorful scene than at any hour of any day your eyes may behold, from the Anne
 da garden below the Moorish Tower. down
 through the WaterPort street, in this
 MoOrish- built, SpAnish-hnished and Eng
 lish- held olden fortress town.
 EDGAR L. WAxrNAS.