To the Gold Coast for Gold | Page 7

the view. Passing the tide-rip Charybdis, a
meeting of currents, which called only for another hand at the wheel;
and the castled crag of naughty Scylla, whose town has grown
prodigiously, we bade adieu to the 'tower of Pelorus.' Then we shaped
our course for the Islands of Æolus, or the Winds, and the Lipari

archipelago, all volcanic cones whose outlines were misty as Ossian's
spectres. And we plodded through the dreary dull-grey scene of
drizzling scirocco--
Till, when all veilèd sank in darkling air, Naught but the welkin and the
wave was there.
Next morning showed us to port the Cone of Maritimo: it outlies
Marsala, whose wine caused the blinding of Polyphemus, and since that
time has brought on many an attack of liver. The world then became to
us pontus et aer. Days and nights were equally uneventful; the diary
tells only of quiet seas under the lee of Sardinia and of the Balearics,
ghostly glimpses of the North African coast and the steady setting in of
the normal wester, the indraught of 'the Straits.'
On Friday (November 9) the weather broke and deluged us with rain.
At Gibraltar the downpour lasted twenty-four hours. We found
ourselves at anchor before midnight with a very low barometer, which
suggested unpleasantries. Next morning we sighted the deep blue
waters of the Bay, and the shallow brown waters of the Bayside crested
with foam by a furious norther, that had powdered the far Ronda
highlands with snow. Before noon, however, the gale had abated and
allowed me to transfer myself and African outfit on board the Fez (Capt.
Hay), Moroccan Steamship Company, trading to North Africa. This
was a godsend: there is no regular line between Gibraltar and Lisbon,
and one might easily be delayed for a week.
The few hours' halt allowed me time to call upon my old friend, M.
Dautez, a Belgian artist. Apparently he is the only person in the place
who cares for science. He has made extensive collections. He owns
twenty-four coins from Carteia, whereas Florez (Medallas, Madrid,
1773) shows a total of only thirty-three. Amongst his antiquities there
is a charming statuette of Minerva, a bronze miniature admirably
finished. He has collected the rock fauna, especially the molluscs, fossil
and modern. He is preparing an album of the Flora Calpensis. His birds'
nests were lately sold to an Englishman. All these objects, of immense
local interest, were offered by him at the lowest possible rate to the
Military Library, but who is there to understand their value? I wonder

how many Englishmen on the Rock know that they are within easy ride
of the harbour which named the 'Ships of Tarshish'? Tartessus, which
was Carteia, although certain German geographers would, against the
general voice of antiquity, make the former the country and the latter
the city, lay on both sides of the little Guadarranque stream, generally
called First River; and the row of tumuli on the left bank probably
denotes the site of the famous docks. I was anxious to open diggings in
1872, but permission was not forthcoming: now, however, they say that
the Duke of Medina Sidonia would offer no objections.
Gib, though barbarous in matters of science, is civilised as regards
'business.' It was a treat to see steamer after steamer puff in, load up
with blue peter at the fore, and start off after a few hours which would
have been days at Patras, Zante, and Messina. Here men work with a
will, as a walk from the Convent to the Old Mole, the Mersa or
water-port of a Moroccan town, amply proves. The uniforms are neat
and natty--they were the reverse five years ago--and it is a pleasure to
look upon the fresh faces of English girls still unstained by
unconsumed carbon. And the authorities have had the good sense to
preserve the old Moorish town of Tárik and his successors, the triangle
of walls with the tall tower-like mosque for apex, and the base facing
the bay.
We left Gibraltar at 5 P.M. on Saturday (December 10), giving a wide
berth to the hated Pearl Rock, which skippers would remove by force of
arms. Seen from east or west Gib has an outline of its own. The
Britisher, whose pride it is, sees the 'lion of England who has laid his
paw upon the key of the Mediterranean,' and compares it with the king
of beasts, sejant, the tail being Europa Point. The Spaniards, to whom it
is an eyesore, liken it to a shrouded corpse, the outlined head lying to
the north, and declare, truly enough, that to them it is a dead body.
The norther presently changed to the rainy south-wester, the builder of
the Moroccan 'bars' and the scourge of the coast fringing North-west
Africa, Rolling