GIBRALTAR OF THE MOORS.
There is no place of which it is more difficult to form an idea without
seeing it, than Gibraltar. One naturally expects to find a fortress
closing the Mediterranean with its celebrated galleries and enormous
guns facing the Straits. It is nothing of the kind.
The Straits are, at the narrowest part, seven miles and a quarter
wide; but that part is fifteen miles from Gibraltar. It is only after
you have passed the Narrows that you see the “Rock” away to the left.
Ceuta, in like manner, recedes to the right; the width being here
twelve miles. The current runs in the centre, sweeping vessels along,
and instead of being exposed to inconvenience from either fortress,
they would generally find it difficult to get under their guns. The
batteries and galleries face Spain, and look landward, not seaward.
Whatever its value in other respects, it is quite a mistake to suppose
that it commands the Straits, or has ever had a gun mounted for that
purpose.
Gibraltar is a tongue three miles long and one broad, running out into
the sea, pointing to Africa, and joined to Spain at the northern
extremity by a low isthmus of sand: it presents an almost perpendicular
face to the Spanish coast. Seen from the “Queen of Spain’s Chair,” it
resembles a lion couching on the point, its head towards Spain, its
tail towards Africa, as if it had cleared the Straits at a spring.
Geologically speaking, it belongs to the African hills, which are
limestone, and not to those of the opposite Spanish coast, which
are crystalline. Mount Abyla is called by the Moors after Muza, who
planned the expedition, and Calpe is now named after Tarif, the leader
who conducted it. Seen from the mountains above Algesiras, the rock
resembles a man lying on his back with his head on one side. The
resemblance of Mount Athos to a man I have made out in a similar manner.
The side towards the Mediterranean is now made inaccessible by
scarping, but it was nearly so before. Towards the point at the south,
the rock lowers and breaks down till, on the Bay side, it shelves
into the sea; thence along the Bay, which in its natural state was
an open beach of sand, gently sloping up until shouldered by the
steep sides or precipices of the Rock. This level ground affords the
site for the present town. The southern and larger portion has been
converted into the beautiful pleasure-ground called the Almeida, or is
occupied by barracks and private residences. Half of this bristling
tongue was formed unapproachable,--man has fenced in the other. This
sea-wall from end to end is the work of the Moors. Antiquarians have
endeavoured to find here Roman and Phœnician remains. I should just as
soon expect to find a Roman fortress at John O’Groat’s, or a Phœnician
emporium on Salisbury Plain. It was reserved for a shrewder people than
Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, or Goths, to discover Gibraltar’s worth.
There are three elevations on the ridge, one in the centre, and one
at each extremity. That in the centre is the highest; and here is the
signal station, from which works are carried straight down to the beach
at the ragged staff. The upper part of the Rock is like a roof, and
down it, like forked lightning, runs a zig-zag wall. Below this stony
thatching there is a story or two of precipices; the line of defence
drops over them and on the works, which shut in the town on the south,
and which consist of a curtain-bastion and ditch. In the rear of this
wall (the zig-zag) there are the remains of a still more ancient one. A
great amount of labour has been expended upon this almost inaccessible
height. These zig-zag, or flanking lines, are naturally assumed to
be modern, and the wall goes by the name of Charles V., who restored
the fortification below; but the loop-holes are for cross-bows. The
diagonal steps at the landing-places, the materials and the coating, as
well as the whole aspect, show them to be Moorish. Heterodox as this
opinion was held when I first broached it, it was not impugned after
two inspections by the officers best qualified to pronounce on such a
matter.
On the north, too, all our defences are restorations of the Moorish
works: even in the galleries they have been our forerunners. Their
open works were in advance of ours, and a staircase is cut out through
the Rock down to the beach. In fact, save in what is requisite for
the application of gunpowder, or what is superfluous for defence,
the Moors had rendered Gibraltar what it is to-day. They have
even left us structures of the greatest service, as resisting the
effects of gunpowder, and such as we are able neither to rival nor
to imitate. On the great lines, in consequence of the many changes
which have taken place, the original work has been displaced, or
covered up, and especially so along the sea-wall; but, ascend to the
signal-post,--crawl out on the face of the Rock to the north,--examine
even yet Europa Point--Rozier Bay, and everywhere you find the Moor.
It is impossible to move about at Gibraltar, without having the old
tower in sight, and it is difficult to take one’s eyes off it when it
is so. No aspiring lines, no graceful sweeps, no columned terraces
exert their fascination, nor is it ruin and dilapidation that speak to
the heart. The building is plain in its aspect, mathematical in its
forms, clean in its outlines, with a sturdy and stubborn middle-aged
air, without a shade of fancy or of wildness. Nevertheless, the eye is
drawn to it, and then your thoughts are fixed on it--and they are so,
precisely because you cannot tell why.
It constitutes the apex of a triangular fort, and massy and lofty
itself, it thus assumes a station of dignity and command. The annals
of time are traced on it--here by the arrow-head still sticking,[29]
there by the hollow of the shot and shell. It has borne the brunt of
a score of sieges, and stands to-day without a single repair. On its
summit, seventy feet from the ground, guns are planted. The terrace
on the roof is cracked, but the surface is otherwise as smooth as if
just finished. The pottery-pipes fitted in to carry away the water, are
precisely such as might have been shipped from London. A semicircular
arch supports a gallery on the inner side. A window opening in this
gallery, now blocked up, is like a church window with the Gothic arch
chamfered. The exterior was plastered in fine lime, and there are
traces of its having been divided off into figures. It has now, by the
barbarians in possession, been rubbed over with dirty brown to make it
look _ancient_. The turrets on the walls below have been furbished up
to look like cruet-stands, and the staring face of a clock[30] is stuck
in a Saracen tower.
The upper story only is explored and open; the flooring is perfectly
smooth, and the roof stuccoed. There is a bath-room, and a mosque; the
former has a figured aperture slanting through ten or twelve feet of
wall to admit the light, as in the domes of Eastern baths. The other
parts of the building are as much unknown as those of the unopened
Pyramids. If these ruins had been in the hands of the tribe that live
on the rock above, there would have been exhibited at least as much
taste, and certainly more curiosity.
The standing walls adjoining the towers exhibit faces of arches that
covered in halls and surrounded courts. The second portion of the fort
is at present used as a prison. The lower enclosure is of greater
extent, and in the line of the wall is a remarkable Egyptian-looking
building, square with buttresses at the angles and a pyramidal
roof--roof and walls one mass of Moorish concrete (Tapia). It is
as perfect as it was a thousand years ago, and may be equally so a
thousand years hence. It is at present used as a powder-magazine,
and is divided into two stories. The flooring of the upper hall is
supported in the middle by a block of masonry some fifty feet square.
This apartment is curiously ventilated.
This Moorish fort is, as a whole, a building of great interest.
An architect of the last century speaks of it as one of the most
remarkable on the soil of Europe. It was no embellishment of, or
defence for a capital; it was raised in time of trouble on a remote
promontory as a protection for insurgents. It was antecedent to art in
Europe,--the people who raised it did not imitate Rome; they must have
brought this art with them. It stands a match for man and time, defying
at once the inventions of the one and the ravages of the other.
Here is an original in design and substance, a work surpassing those
of the Romans in strength, and equalling those of the Egyptians in
durability.
As the zig-zag lines have been attributed to the Spaniards, so on high
authority is a much more recent date[31] than that which I here assign
to them given to the Moorish fort and tower; but supposing them to
be of no earlier date than the fourteenth century, they would still
illustrate a style of architecture which the Moors introduced, and
which, like language, is lost in the mists of antiquity.
They are now busy in demolishing the works that connected the Moorish
fort with the harbour. Whilst tracing the old wall from the former to
the latter, I came upon a large arch, and satisfied myself that this
had been an entrance to an inner harbour. On subsequent reference to
James’s History of Gibraltar, I find that this was well known in his
time.
During these researches, in which I spent a month, I had not the aid
that is generally obtained from the observations of others. I often
attempted to look into books, but was always constrained to throw them
aside, and return to the writings on the wall. What manner of men were
these Moors?--the ruins suggested the question, and books furnished no
answer.
On the sea-side, Gibraltar is open to the fire of vessels, and would
have been captured on one occasion, but for the dissensions between the
combined forces. We have retained it only by a new invention, _red-hot
shot_.
The land-entrance is defended as follows: first, the isthmus round
the north face of the Rock is dug out and filled with water, and
between this basin, called the Inundation, and the Bay, a causeway
only is left, which can be swept away at once by the enormous guns
from the overhanging caverns. Behind the Inundation, is the glacis,
elaborately mined; and behind the ditch there is a curtain, mounting
eighteen or twenty guns, which fills up the gap between the Rock
and the works on the port. As you advance along the narrow causeway
between the Inundation and the Bay, you have this curtain in front.
To the right stretches out into the water, a long low mole called the
“Devil’s Tongue,” and between it and the curtain, there is tier upon
tier of embrasures over the Port and the Port entrance. To the left
of the curtain, the sharp engineering lines scale the rocks, and link
the chain of defence to the Moorish Tower. Thence the cliffs sweep
away round to the left, parallel to the causeway, along which you are
advancing. The Rock is shaved into lines for musketry, or pierced with
port-holes, which stretch away in rows far and high. On the crest of
the first precipice, batteries and guns are scattered. You see them
again on the loftiest summit of the Rock, so that as you approach, you
pass over ground swept with metal, and through successive centres of
converging fire. This is by the Spaniards called “Bocca del Fuego.”
At each step, from all around, above, below, from Merlon, rock, and
cavern, mouths of iron--some of them caverns themselves--open upon you.
This is the only portion of the contour of the place that an assailant
could approach or batter. With a sufficient garrison, and superiority
at sea, so as to throw in provisions, the place is clearly impregnable.
The breaching batteries would have to be advanced beyond the guns
on the northern portion of the rock, and the advanced works would
be looked into, and down upon. In no sieges had either breach been
attempted, or third parallel drawn. The batteries on the crest of the
Rock, termed Willis’s, were the effectual defence, by their plunging
fire into the Spanish works. The siege, properly speaking, was an
attempt to starve, by cutting off supplies at sea, and to break down
by sheer superiority of fire and shelling. The operations from the
sea would have been successful but for the red-hot shot. The vaunted
galleries have been constructed since the siege, and are mere matters
of ostentation.
Gibraltar has neither dock nor harbour. The Bay and anchorage are
commanded by the Spanish forts, St. Barbara and St. Philip. These are
levelled at present; but they will arise on the only occasion that
we can require protection--that is to say, a war with Spain. They,
therefore, must be restored in the mind’s eye, if you would form any
estimate of the value of this fortress in case of war. They were
dismantled during the late war by the Spanish government, lest the
French _should occupy them_, and destroy the English shipping. The
Spanish government, however, formally reserved its right to rebuild
them. The question has been lately raised by our sinking one of their
men-of-war in their own waters, while pursuing a smuggler.
The guns of St. Barbara command the anchorage and batter the harbour;
the shells from it and St. Philip pass clean over the Rock, lengthways,
and can be dropped into every creek where a shoulder of rock might
shelter a vessel from the direct fire. During the siege by France and
Spain, the post was of no use. Unless when superior at sea, we had to
sink our vessels to save them.
In Gibraltar, there is little trade except contraband; the natural
commerce having been systematically discouraged, that the martial
departments might not be troubled, and with the view of reducing it
to a mere military establishment. The fiscal regulations of Spain,
which sustain this traffic, would long since have fallen but for its
retention by England. We, therefore, lose the legitimate trade of all
Spain for the smuggling profits (which go to the Spaniards) at this
port.
Gibraltar does not command the Straits. It does not present means of
repairs for the navy. It does not afford shelter for shipping in case
of war. It does not advantage, but seriously incommodes our trade. It
does not afford the means of invading or of overawing, or even in any
way annoying Spain, however much it may irritate her; for no fertile
country, populous region, or wealthy city is exposed to it, and there
is no highway by land or sea which it can command.
William III., when he conspired for the partition of the Spanish
monarchy, on the demise of Charles the Second, stipulated for
Gibraltar, the ports of Mahon, and Oran, and a portion of Spain’s
transatlantic dominions. On the death of the last of the line of Philip
Le Bel, Louis XIV. was bought off by the offer of the crown for his
grandson. The English and the Dutch then set up Charles the Third,
and sent a squadron in his name to summon Gibraltar to surrender. The
garrison consisted only of one hundred and ninety men; but it held
out. The Dutch and English battered, and took it. The flag of Charles
the Third was hoisted, but suddenly hauled down and replaced by the
English, to the surprise and indignation of our Dutch allies. Thus was
revealed the secret condition of the compact.
Gibraltar was all that England did get out of that war, and as this
robbery went a great way to ensure her discomfiture, and to establish
Philip the Fifth upon the throne, we may consider Gibraltar as the
cause of the first of those ruinous wars which, made without due
authority, and carried on by anticipations of Revenue, have introduced
among us those social diseases which have counterbalanced and perverted
the mechanical advancement of modern times.
Gibraltar was confirmed to us at the Treaty of Utrecht, but without any
jurisdiction attached to it, and upon the condition that no smuggling
should be carried on thence into Spain. These conditions we daily
violate. We exercise jurisdiction by cannon shot in the Spanish waters
(for the Bay is all Spanish). Under our batteries, the smuggler runs
for protection; he ships his bales at our quays; he is either the agent
of our merchants, or is insured by them; and the flag-post at the top
of the Rock is used to signal to him the movements of the Spanish
cruisers.[32]
We take it for granted that Gibraltar has been honourably, some will
even say chivalrously, won in fair fight; that it has been secured by
treaty and is retained on duly observed conditions; or, perhaps, we
never trouble ourselves about such matters, and imagine, therefore,
that other nations are equally indifferent; but if any one of us would
take the trouble to imagine the fortress of Dover in the possession of
France, or Austria, or Russia, he would then comprehend why Napoleon
said that “Gibraltar was a pledge which England had given to France by
securing to herself the undying hatred of Spain.”[33]
Now let us see the cost. The first item in the account is the Spanish
War of Succession. From the consequences of that war and the retention
of Gibraltar, the family compact of the Bourbons arose. The subsequent
European wars are thus partly the cost-price of Gibraltar.
This combined power weighed constantly against England and her
fortune. If these effects were to be calculated in money, it would
be by hundreds of millions. The actual outlay, however, is enormous.
Gibraltar must have cost at least, 50,000,000_l._[34] If any one
were to do us the favour of taking it off our hands, we should save
30,000,000_l._ more, for the interest of that sum is absorbed by its
yearly outlay.
I cannot speak of this place in any sense as English. I must recollect
only and describe it as Moorish. To the Moors it owes its reputation
and its strength; and it had for them value. It was acquired by them in
a fair, open, stand-up fight. It was selected with judgment, fortified
with skill, and defended with valour. The reason why the place was
of importance to the Moors was, that they were _invading Spain from
Africa_, and that, without the _superiority at sea_.
We have had experience of Gibraltar for a century and a half: we have
carried on great wars during that time, maritime and territorial
combined. The Mediterranean, as much as the ocean, has been the field
of our operations. Spain has been the arena of contest. In the history
of time, there has been no series of events so calculated to bring out
the value of this fortress, if it had any (except as above stated), yet
what have we to show?--Merely a position which we have defended. We
have never acted from it; we have never invaded Spain by it; we have
never supported Spain through it; we have never refitted at it. It has
figured in war solely in consequence of operations against it, or by
the necessity of accumulating and locking up there our resources for
its protection.
The question of its value for England can only arise in the case of
Spain being against us. Spain being with England, Gibraltar would be at
our disposal as Ceuta was during the last war. In the hands of Spain
no sane man would ever think of attacking it. When William III. fixed
upon it, it was because he was seeking for something to cover his real
purpose, which was to involve the nation in foreign wars.
Gibraltar is the very point where it would be desirable for Spain
that an invader should land. It is the apex of a rocky province, well
defended and destitute of towns and subsistences. Without the command
of the sea, you cannot attack Spain from the sea; and having that
command it is the plains of the Guadalquiver you would seek, the open
entrances into Grenada and Valencia. It would be the towns of Malaga,
Cadiz, and Barcelona--there the vital parts are exposed.
The Carthaginians attacked Spain from Africa. The Romans, like the
English, supported Spain; at least, they began by doing so. Yet neither
Carthaginian nor Roman fixed upon Gibraltar. Scipio has told the whole
story, and Livy has preserved his words, yet no one seems to have read
them. They are of special value; for the contest for Spain, and through
Spain, for the world, was not so much between Rome and Carthage,
as between two families, the Scipios and the Barcas. The passage I
refer to, is in Scipio’s speech to the soldiers before the walls of
Carthagena, the spot where Spain was most vulnerable from Africa, and
where Africa might be most heavily struck from Spain.[35]
Had the Moors been able to do what the Carthaginians did, they would
not have fixed on this rock. Having been defeated at sea before the
first invasion, they had to steal over by the nearest point. Gibraltar
was their _tête de pont_ across the Straits. Ceuta, their place
of arms, was immediately opposite, yet, with all these propitious
circumstances, Gibraltar came to be of importance only _as commanding
the Bay of Algesiras_, which they had made strong, though not naturally
so, by sheer building and fortification.
Gibraltar now lives on its former credit. There are no Scipios or
Hannibals now-a-days, nor even Napoleons or Walpoles.[36] We are now
men learned in facts. Gibraltar being a place of great strength, it is
assumed to be a place of great value, and we are perfectly content with
having for the sake of it disturbed Europe, endured the abomination and
the load of public debt, sullied our name, and squandered our treasure.
And yet this cost would not be wholly vain, if the word “Gibraltar,”
could but bring some of that blood to the cheek of the Englishman,
which it causes to rush to the heart of the Spaniard. No doubt there is
for the Spaniard, a conflict of disgusts, and he has severally been
under obligations to England and France, when spoiled by the other;
but that has been, as regards him only, a temporary relaxation of
wickedness and perfidy, and in aiding him, each has only been opposing
its own antagonist.
The Spaniard alone in Europe has retained the faculty of looking at a
nation’s acts as those of a man, and appreciating it thereby. He does
not ask what it says or intends, or what food it eats, or how many
servants it has. He looks at its _dealings_ with himself. The Spaniard
knows that his two neighbours, for one hundred and forty years, have
been seeking to rob and overreach him; plotting one day the partition
of his property, the next, the supplanting of his heir; constantly
engaged in intrigues amongst his servants, and the one or the other
insisting on ruining his steward. He sees that, during all that time,
they have gained nothing; but while injuring him, have themselves
squandered incalculable fortunes and innumerable lives,--what can he
feel towards them but hatred and disgust? Fortunate is it for them, he
does so; for this prevents either of them getting a footing in Spain:
if the one could, the other would and could also; and the scenes of
the Inquisition would then be repeated. But in the struggle of Rome
and Carthage the world remained the prize of the victor; the struggle
between England and France will be certainly at the cost of both, and
assuredly will terminate in the supremacy of neither, and out of Spain
that contest may yet come, unless there be sense enough in one country
or the other to know what its agents are about, and to stop them.
GIBRALTAR AS EXHIBITED IN MURRAY’S HAND-BOOK.
“It was captured during the War of the Succession by Sir George Rooke,
July 24th, 1704, who attacked it suddenly, and found it garrisoned
by only one hundred and fifty men, who immediately had recourse to
relics and saints. It was taken by us in the name of the Archduke
Charles; this was the first stone which fell from the vast but ruinous
edifice of the Spanish monarchy, and George I. would have given it up
at the peace of Utrecht, so little did he estimate its worth, and the
nation thought it ‘a barren rock, an insignificant fort, and a useless
charge.’ What its real value is as regards Spain, will be understood
by supposing Portland Island to be in the hands of the French. It is
a bridle in the mouth of Spain and Barbary. It speaks a language of
power which alone is understood and obeyed by those cognate nations.
The Spaniards never knew the value of this barren rock until its
loss, which now so wounds their national pride. Yet Gibraltar in the
hands of England is a safeguard that Spain never can become a French
province, or the Mediterranean a French lake. Hence the Bourbons north
of the Pyrenees have urged their poor kinsmen-tools to make gigantic
efforts to pluck out this thorn in their path. The siege by France
and Spain lasted four years. Then the very ingenious M. d’Arcon’s
_invincible_ floating batteries, that could neither be burnt, sunk,
nor taken, were burnt, sunk, and taken by plain Englishmen, who stood
to their guns on the 13th of September, 1783.”--(p. 341.)
“Gibraltar, from having been made the hotbed of revolutionists of
all kinds, from Torrijos downwards, has rendered every Spanish
garrison near it singularly sensitive; thus the Phœnicians welcomed
every stranger who pryed about the Straits, by throwing him into the
sea.”--(p. 226.) “There is very little intercommunication between
Algeciras and Gibraltar; the former is the naval and military position
from whence the latter is watched, and the _foreigner’s_ possession of
Gibraltar rankles deeply, as well it may. Here are the head-quarters
of Spanish preventive cutters, which prowl about the Bay, and often
cut out those smugglers who have _not_ bribed them, even from under
the guns of our batteries: some are now and then just sunk for the
intrusion; but all this breeds bad blood, and mars, on the Spaniards’
part, the _entente cordiale_.”--(p. 227).
FOOTNOTES:
[29] The last one disappeared while I was at Gibraltar.
[30] This Vandalism was gazetted, and the turret termed “Stanley Tower.”
[31] Afterwards, at Madrid, Don P. Gayangos referred me to Ibn Batuta
as fixing the date in the fourteenth century. On consulting that
traveller, I find that he spoke of repairs under Abn El Haran, who
ascended the throne of Fez in 1330. An inscription which existed in
the last century, and of which a fac-simile is given in Col. James’s
History of Gibraltar, seems to fix the date at A.D. 750. The following
is the passage from Ibn Batuta:--“A despicable foe had had possession
of it for twenty years, until our lord the Sultan Abn El Haran reduced
him; he then rebuilt and strengthened its fortifications and walls, and
stored it with cavalry, treasure, and warlike machines.”
[32] When this was told to M. Thiers, he would not believe it, till he
went out and watched the balls and flags, and had the use explained to
him by a boatmen of the port.
[33] Napoleon in captivity, being asked if he really had the
intention of attacking Gibraltar, or the hope of getting possession
of it, answered, “It was not my business to relieve England from
such a possession. It shuts nothing, it opens nothing, it leads to
nothing,--it is a pledge given by England to France, because it ensures
to England the undying hatred of Spain.”
[34] The following is only suggested as a rough guess:--
Ordinary expenditure during ninety years
of peace £18,000,000
Extraordinary expenditure during
fifty-five years of war 22,000,000
Sieges, including expenses of fleets
for its defence, vessels for its supply,
loss of ships to the enemy, &c. 10,000,000
Fortifications 5,000,000
------------
£55,000,000
============
[35] “Potiemur præterea cum pulcherima opulentissima que urbe tum
opportunissima, portu egregio unde terra marique quæ belli usus poscunt
suppeditentur * * Hæc illis arx, hoc horreum, ærarium, armamentarium,
hoc omnium rerum receptaculum est. Huc rectus ex Africa cursus est.
Hæc una inter Pyrenæum et Gades statio. Hinc omnis Hispania imminet
Africæ.”--LIVY.
[36] He did his best to restore it to its rightful owner.