alan Bay, on the East Side of Gibraltar,              65

  Plan of Gibraltar,                                       71

  "Old Eliott," the Defender of Gibraltar,                108

  Windmill Hill and O'Hara's Tower,                       132

  Europa Point,                                           143




CHAPTER I.

ENTERING THE STRAITS.


I heard the last gun of the Old Year fired from the top of the Rock,
and the first gun of the New. It was the very last day of 1886 that we
entered the Straits of Gibraltar. The sea was smooth, the sky was clear,
and the atmosphere so warm and bright that it seemed as if winter had
changed places with summer, and that in December we were breathing the
air of June.

On a day like this, when the sea is calm and still, groups of travellers
sit about on the deck, watching the shores on either hand. How near they
come to each other, only nine miles dividing the most southern point of
Europe from the most northern point of Africa! Perhaps they once came
together, forming a mountain chain which separated the sea from the
ocean. But since the barrier was burst, the waters have rushed through
with resistless power. Looking over the side of the ship, we observe
that the current is setting eastward, which would not excite surprise
were it not that it never turns back. The Mediterranean is a tideless
sea: it does not ebb and flow, but pours its mighty volume ceaselessly
in the same direction. This, the geographers tell us, is a provision
of nature to supply the waste caused by the greater evaporation at the
eastern end of the Great Sea. But this satisfies us only in part,
since while this current flows on the surface, there is another, though
perhaps a feebler, current flowing in the opposite direction. Down
hundreds or fathoms deep, a hidden Gulf Stream is pouring back into
the bosom of the ocean. This system of the ocean currents is one of the
mysteries which we do not fully understand. It seems as if there were
a spirit moving not only upon the waters, but in the waters; as if th