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But from Southampton to Gibraltar is for a steamship an easy six days' sail; from Gibraltar to Malta not more than five days; and from Malta to the extreme eastern coast of the sea and back again hardly ten days' sail. Take the grand highway of nations to India. England has her places of refreshment scattered all along it with almost as much regularity as depots on a railroad.
The action terminated, as appears by the log, at thirty-five minutes after one; and the squadron proceeded to Gibraltar. As soon as the ship was secured, the Admiral sent me on shore to the governor, to relate to him the events of the two preceding days.
Algiers is particularly known to have owed to a great provision of these vessels the safety of its city since the epoch of their construction, Before that it had been repeatedly insulted and injured. The effect of gunboats at present in the neighborhood of Gibraltar is well known, and how much they were used both in the attack and defense of that place during a former war.
After passing through the Gut of Gibraltar, we made for Malta; which place seems to have such a magnetic attraction for our men-of-war, both homeward and outward bound, that none by any chance ever gives it the go-by, there being always some little defect to `make good, or despatches to wait for, or letters to post, or something that obliges them to cast anchor in Valetta harbour, if they are only allowed to remain an hour or two!
She was daughter to a military officer, whose exploit at the siege of Gibraltar she recited to her boy. It was that of a derring-do soldier. He happened to be on leave, from his duties at the fortress, when the famous siege began. He hurried to the neighbourhood, laid hold of a boat, and actually rowed through the Spanish fleet.
On the tenth day he read with watery eyes, posted on the bulletin below the news of the arrival at Gibraltar of the second boat-load of people, the following: "Life-buoy of Royal Age, London, picked up among wreckage in Lat. 45-20, N. Lon. 54-31, W. Ship Arctic, Boston, Capt. Brandt." "Oh, mine good God," he howled, as he rushed toward the Captain's room.
Another reason of this dwelling, is the frequent inundations; for after great rains, the land is often overflown for two or three leagues, there being no less than twenty-five great rivers that feed this lake. The town of Gibraltar is also frequently drowned by these, so that the inhabitants are constrained to retire to their plantations.
Plato in Timæo, and in the Dialogue called Critias, discourseth of an incomparable great Iland then called Atlantis, being greater then all Afrike and Asia, which lay Westward from the Straights of Gibraltar, nauigable round about: affirming also that the Princes of Atlantis did as well enioy the gouernance of all Affrike, and the most part of Europe, as of Atlantis it selfe.
To scale these heights seemed a feat as incredible as scaling our Palisades or the sheer cliff of Gibraltar. But they had been scaled, and the side toward us was crawling with French soldiers, climbing to the trenches, descending from the trenches, carrying to the trenches food, ammunition, and fuel for the fires.
The Spanish ships there refusing to join him, he pressed on, went by Gibraltar on the 8th, and on the 9th anchored off Cadiz, whence he drove away Orde's squadron. The "Aigle," with six Spanish ships, joined at once, and that night the combined force, eighteen ships-of-the-line, sailed for Martinique, where it arrived on the 14th of May.
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