AN EXPLORATION OF GIBRALTAR BAY
"I say, Flix," said Louis, as he seated himself on one of the stools
with which the forecastle was provided, as they were passing the
Old Mole, "did it ever occur to you that our voyage from the Bahama
Islands was over about the same track as that taken by Columbus when he
discovered the New World?"
"I never thought a word about it, my darling," replied Felix.
"I wonder you didn't, for I persuaded you to read Irving's 'Life of
Columbus'; and you know he took his final departure from the Canary
Islands."
"I know he did; but he did not come back that way, and he had some
mighty tough weather, just as we had in coming to the Canaries."
"He returned by the Azores. But I was going to ask you a question,
Flix."
"Is it a question?"
"Do you remember seeing the word 'cosmography' in the book?"
"I do remember that same; and I remember seeing the dictionary in
regard to it. It is a very big word for a mighty small matter."
"Not at all. What do you understand by the word?"
"I should say that, according to Columbus, it meant the science or the
art of drawing maps."
"More than that; for it includes geography and astronomy and something
more than that, for it is the science of the universe, comprehending
the laws and relations of all its parts."
"Then it is a big subject; but Captain Columbus did not mean by it much
more than the description of countries, seas, and oceans. He might as
well have called it geography. A cosmographer is one who studies the
world or the universe; and that is what Columbus was, for he had an
astrolabe, and took the sun like any other old salt."
"Very good, Flix; and I am glad you read so understandingly."
"Did you think I was a fool?" asked Felix with a little gentle
indignation in his tone and looks.
"I knew you were not; and, like Captain Columbus, you are a
cosmographer," replied Louis, rallying his companion with a laugh.
"Is it I? Not much!"
"But you are"--
"Neutral Ground!" called Scott from the pilot-house. "It's about a
half-mile wide, and then comes San Felipe."
"Named after our engineer," added Felix.
"Precisely so: and that place is in Spain. You are studying the coast
of that country, and therefore you are a cosmographer," continued
Louis.
"Well, I haven't got it bad," protested Felix.
"You have it as badly as any of us; for we are all studying the
cosmography of the countries we visit, and especially the shores we
approach. We are all cosmographers."
"The hill directly ahead of us is the Carbonera Mountain," shouted
Scott; and it is possible that he desired to display the knowledge he
had picked up during the afternoon to prepare himself as a pilot.
"Carbonera!" exclaimed Felix. "What a word! I wonder if it means
anything. What does it mean, Scott?"
"I'm no Spaniard, and I don't know; all I study is the navigation,"
replied the pilot.
"Navigation! Are you going to take us up to the top of that hill in the
Sally Hay?" chuckled Felix, believing he had made a point.
"Not at all; and I am not going to take you to the top of the
lighthouse on Verde Island when we return; but I shall use it all the
same as a guide to assist me in the navigation, as I do the mountain,
which is nine hundred and seventy-one feet high, and therefore in sight
even in the night."
"You have got him, Scott," laughed Louis. "Flix, you talk as though
you were an old lady who believed that lighthouses were put up to
illuminate the watery region where they are placed, instead of to give
the mariner his bearings."
"I am not quite so green as the Ragged Staff Light," replied Felix,
rather cut up by Scott's victory over him. "But I am as wise as the
pilot, for I don't know any more than he does what the name of that
mountain means."
"Well, Flix, you ought to have studied Spanish with me, as I asked you
to do before we left New York," added Louis.
"Oh, bother! What do I want of Spanish?"
"To inform you what the meaning is of the name of that hill."
"And do you know what it means, darling?"
"It means a place where they burn charcoal."
"I am not going into the charcoal business at present; and it is of no
great consequence to me," added Felix.
"Knowledge is not all for business purposes; and it is worth while to
have it, even if you cannot make any money out of it in detail."
"Point Mala," said Scott.
"And what does that mean, Louis?" asked Felix.
"_Malo_ means bad, wicked, or sickly. _Mala_ is the feminine of the
same word; and it also means the mail, or a mail-bag. I don't know the
history of this _punta_, or point, so that I cannot tell whether it is
a sickly place, a wicked locality, or is the place where they formerly
landed the mail on its way to San Roque."
"That is San Roque on the hill to the left of Carbonera Mountain," said
Scott, who could hear all that was said on the forecastle.
"Then learning Spanish don't teach you everything, Louis, my darling,"
chuckled Felix. "It ought to let you know whether Mala is a wicked
place or a mail-bag."
"Knowledge has its limits; and generally they are not very far off.
But you might as well refuse to believe you had any hair on your head
because you can not tell how many capillary shafts it consists of."
"I have none of those things on my pate," laughed Felix, shaking his
head vigorously. "If I have, I will scatter them. Are those shafts like
the one that whirls the propeller of the Guardian-Mamma, Louis?"
"I am afraid the limits of your knowledge of the ornamental appendage
of your fine head are not as near as they might be, for you do not seem
to know the nomenclature of the hairs of your head."
"Are you talking Spanish just now, my darling? If not, I ought to have
brought a dictionary with me," said Felix with a gasp to denote the
depth of his despair.
"Point Mirador," called the pilot.
"Punta Mirador," added Louis.
"You ought to have your head bound with iron hoops, like a beer-barrel,
to keep it from bursting with the fulness thereof, for some of the long
words are sticking out through the cracks now."
"If it collapses, Flix, I hope you will gather up some of the fruits of
the explosion; but at present I do not feel any extraordinary pressure,
and I think you will have to acquire your own knowledge in the ordinary
laborious manner."
"I don't see the p'nt of that point which you call a punta"--
"I don't call it a punta, but a poon-ta. Pronounce it correctly when
you speak Spanish, Flix," interposed Louis.
"Poonta Mirador, then. There is more Mira-Por-Vos in it," added Felix,
alluding to the group of islands among the Bahamas on one of which the
foster-father of Scott had been picked up.
"Unfortunately for you there is none of that in it, for mirador means
a person looking on, or a balcony. You pay your money and take your
choice."
"Do you pay it in English or Spanish money? There is something on
the hill that looks like a balcony; and I pay my money for that
interpretation."
"There is another point before we come to Algeciras called
Rinconcillo," added the pilot.
"Call it Rin-con-cil-yo, for double 1 in Spanish is treated like a
single letter, sounded like ly joined," Louis explained.
"Cilyo it is, Don Louis; and I shall be wilying to remember it when
I am spelying out a Spanish word and filying up my empty head with
such eroodition through the capilyary shafts. But I suppose that
four-sylyabler means something."
"You observe that the word is a diminutive."
"I observe," replied Felix, shrugging his shoulders, and extending his
two hands like a puzzled or a deprecating Frenchman. "I always thought
a diminutive meant something small, and this is a four-syllabler, with
eleven letters, counting in the y."
"Does infinitesimal cover the length of the word or its meaning, Flix?"
"Give it up! You always beat me in a literary discussion, my darling;
and Oi'm moighty proud of your lairnin'."
"Rinconcillo, without regard to the length of the word, means a small
corner," said Louis.
"And that's just where I am!" exclaimed Felix. "There is only one thing
in which I can beat you."
"What's that, Flix?" asked Morris, who had been too much amused to say
anything before.
"In using the swate brogue of Ould Ireland, which I lairned from me
modther, long life to her, though she died when I was a babby."
"Welcome to your superiority in that line, my boy; but I hoped you
would forget your brogue before this time, for you have talked all the
evening till now without a touch of it," added Louis.
"Forgit me brogue? Niver! I'd dhrown mesel' in half a point o' wather
afore I'd forgit me modther tongue!"
"There is an opening in the land on the starboard side, just ahead of
us," Scott announced. "I suppose it is the River Palmones, and there is
a village on the north side of it. I missed the Guadarranque River.
"Small loss; but are we going into this river, Scott?" asked Louis.
"I guess not; I don't know the navigation, and it is not sounded on the
chart of the bay. But there are some small vessels in there, for I can
see their masts not half a cable's length from the shore."
"We don't want anything of them."
"There is a boat coming out of the river," said Morris.
"All right: there is room enough in this bay for both of us," added
Louis, as he glanced in the direction of the outlet of the stream.
"I can see the lights in the houses on the shore of the river,"
continued Morris.
The moonlight did not produce a very brilliant illumination of
Gibraltar Bay, though it was light enough to enable the voyagers on
its waters to see all prominent objects on the shores, and to make out
the shape of the points projecting from them. There was not a sail in
sight in this part of the bay, though the masts of the small craft in
the creek could be plainly distinguished. Both of them were schooners,
and they were evidently larger than most of the feluccas seen on the
Mediterranean.
The boat that was approaching contained five men, two of whom were at
the oars. They were pulling out in a direction to intercept the Salihé.
Louis examined the boat and the men as well as he could, and though he
had been utterly unable to imagine any possible danger in connection
with the moonlight excursion, he made up his mind that he, for one,
did not care to encounter a group of five men in just this lonely and
silent locality.
Scott had strictly observed his instructions to keep within about a
quarter of a mile of the shore, and the steam-yacht was now at this
distance from the land. The rowers in the boat did not seem to be
hurrying themselves at the oars, and Louis concluded that it would be a
very easy matter for the Salihé to run away from the strangers when it
seemed necessary to do so.
The steamer continued on her course, and no one expressed any alarm.
Suddenly the Salihé stopped short, her keel grinding in the sand or
mud.