ities of Mashonaland to the men who have made Buluwayo. Such
civilisation as North Africa possesses has been wholly of foreign
origin. The <DW64> race has done nothing worth mentioning, and it may
well be believed, after the experience of Liberia, never will. So that
the Arab invasion sought for other outlets for its expansion than the
warmer clime of Mid or Central Africa. Reaching Algiers, Tarik the
Conqueror passed across the straits to the peninsula of Gibraltar,
and built there, somewhere about 725, a castle of which the existing
Moorish tower may be a relic. It remained in Mohammedan hands for seven
hundred and forty-eight years, and then, captured by the Spaniards, was
remodelled, the “Gebel al Tarik” becoming Christian “Gibraltar.” Its
present arms, a castle with a key pendent at the gate, granted by Henry
IV. of Castile, refer to its condition as a fortress once the key to
the Mediterranean, but now, with the improvements in the range and size
of modern guns, of less value than heretofore.

In 1704 the place was but feebly garrisoned, and fell mainly owing to
the silencing of the batteries by the squadron and their occupation
then by seamen landed from the ships. The troops, under the Prince of
Hesse Darmstadt, meanwhile occupied the isthmus until the fortress
surrendered. So important a capture was not likely to be agreed to
without a further struggle, and in 1705 the Marquis de Villadarius was
despatched to formally besiege it. The garrison, however, had been
reinforced by the 13th and 35th Regiments, a battalion of Guards, and
some Dutch troops, and though several gallant efforts were made to
carry the place by assault they successively failed, and after seven
months the siege was abandoned and converted into a partial blockade.
It had cost the Spaniards and French some 10,000 men, but the garrison
lost only some 400.

For more than twenty years the British flag flew unmolested from the
“Rock.” But, in 1727, Spain made a more determined attempt to regain
her lost possession. The strength o