Had I Been Dreaming, I Should Almost Have Concluded It To Be The Genius Of Africa, In The Shape Of

Its most puissant monster, who had bounded over the sea from the clime of sand and sun, bent on the

Destruction of the rival continent, more especially as the hue of its stony sides, its crest and chine, is tawny even as that of the hide of the desert king. A hostile lion has it almost invariably proved to Spain, at least since it first began to play a part in history, which was at the time when Tarik seized and fortified it. It has for the most part been in the hands of foreigners: first the swarthy and turbaned Moor possessed it, and it is now tenanted by a fair-haired race from a distant isle. Though a part of Spain, it seems to disavow the connexion, and at the end of a long narrow sandy isthmus, almost level with the sea, raising its blasted and perpendicular brow to denounce the crimes which deform the history of that fair and majestic land.

It was near sunset, I say it for the third time, and we were crossing the bay of Gibraltar. Bay! it seemed no bay, but an inland sea, surrounded on all sides by enchanted barriers, so strange, so wonderful was the aspect of its coasts. Before us lay the impregnable hill; on our right the African continent, with its grey Gibil Muza, and the crag of Ceuta, to which last a solitary bark seemed steering its way; behind us the town we had just quitted, with its mountain wall; on our left the coast of Spain. The surface of the water was unruffled by a wave, and as we rapidly glided on, the strange object which we were approaching became momentarily more distinct and visible. There, at the base of the mountain, and covering a small portion of its side, lay the city, with its ramparts garnished with black guns pointing significantly at its moles and harbours; above, seemingly on every crag which could be made available for the purpose of defence or destruction, peered batteries, pale and sepulchral-looking, as if ominous of the fate which awaited any intrusive foe; whilst east and west towards Africa and Spain, on the extreme points, rose castles, towers, or atalaias which overcrowded the whole, and all the circumjacent region, whether land or sea. Mighty and threatening appeared the fortifications, and doubtless, viewed in any other situation, would have alone occupied the mind and engrossed its wonder; but the hill, the wondrous hill, was everywhere about them, beneath them, or above them, overpowering their effect as a spectacle. Who, when he beholds the enormous elephant, with his brandished trunk, dashing impetuously to the war, sees the castle which he bears, or fears the javelins of those whom he carries, however skilful and warlike they may be? Never does God appear so great and powerful as when the works of his hands stand in contrast with the labours of man.

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