The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
Bluish, ’mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray;
‘Here, and here, did England help me—how can I help England?’—say
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turns to God to praise and pray,
While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.”
And the poet is almost literally correct in his description, for within sight, as we enter the Straits of Gibraltar, are the localities of innumerable sea and land fights dating from earliest days. That grand old Rock, what has it not witnessed since the first timid mariner crept out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic—the Mare Tenebrosum—the “sea of darkness” of the ancients? Romans of old fought Carthaginian galleys in its bay; the conquering Moors held it uninterruptedly for six hundred years, and in all for over seven centuries; Spain owned it close on two and a half centuries; and England has dared the world to take it since 1704—one hundred and seventy-three years ago. Its very armorial bearings, which we have adopted from those given by Henry of Castile and Leon, are suggestive of its position and value: a castle on a rock with a key pendant—the key to the Mediterranean. The King of Spain still includes Calpe (Gibraltar) in his dominions; and natives of the place, Ford tells us, in his “Handbook to Spain,” are entitled to the rights and privileges of Spanish birth. It has, in days gone by, given great offence to French writers, who spoke of l’ombrageuse puissance with displeasure. “Sometimes,” says Ford, “there is too great a luxe de canons in this fortress ornée; then the gardens destroy ‘wild nature;’ in short, they abuse the red-jackets, guns, nursery-maids, and even the monkeys.” The present colony of apes are the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Rock. They have held it through all vicissitudes.
The Moorish writers were ever enthusiastic over it. With them it was “the Shining Mountain,” “the Mountain of Victory.” “The Mountain of Taric”70 (Gibraltar), says a Granadian poet, “is like a beacon spreading its rays over the sea, and rising far above the neighbouring mountains; one might fancy that its face almost reaches the sky, and that its eyes are watching the stars in the celestial track.” An Arabian writer well describes its position:—“The waters surround Gibraltar on almost every side, so as to make it look like a watch-tower in the midst of the sea.”
The fame of the last great siege, already briefly described in these pages,71 has so completely overshadowed the general history of the Rock that it will surprise many to learn that it has undergone no less than fourteen sieges. The Moors, after successfully invading Spain, first fortified it in 711, and held uninterrupted possession until 1309, when Ferdinand IV. besieged and took it. The Spaniards only held it twenty-five years, when it reverted to the Moors, who kept it till 1462. “Thus the Moors held it in all about seven centuries and a quarter, from the making a castle on the Rock to the last sorrowful departure of the remnants of the nation. It has been said that Gibraltar was the landing-place of the vigorous Moorish race, and that it was the point of departure on which their footsteps lingered last. In short, it was the European tête de pont, of which Ceuta stands as the African fellow. By these means myriads of Moslems passed into Spain, and with them much for which the Spaniards are wrongfully unthankful. It is said that when the Moors left their houses in Granada, which they did with, so to speak, everything standing, many families took with them the great wooden keys of their mansions, so confident were they of returning home again, when the keys should open the locks and the houses be joyful anew. It was not to be as thus longed for; but many families in Barbary still keep the keys of these long ago deserted and destroyed mansions.”72 And now we must mention an incident of its history, recorded in the “Norwegian Chronicles of the Kings,” concerning Sigurd the Crusader—the Pilgrim. After battling his way from the North, with sixty “long ships,” King Sigurd proceeded on his voyage to the Holy Land, “and came to Niörfa Sound (Gibraltar Straits), and in the Sound he was met by a large viking force (squadron of war-ships), and the King gave them battle; and this was his fifth engagement with heathens since the time he came from Norway. So says Halldor Skualldre:—
“ ‘He moistened your dry swords with blood,
As through Niörfa Sound ye stood;
The screaming raven got a feast,
As ye sailed onwards to the East.’
Hence he went along Sarkland, or Saracen’s Land, Mauritania, where he attacked a strong party, who had their fortress in a cave, with a wall before it, in the face of a precipice: a place which was difficult to come at, and where the holders, who are said to have been freebooters, defied and ridiculed the Northmen, spreading their valuables on the top of the wall in their sight. Sigurd was equal to the occasion in craft as in force, for he had his ships’ boats drawn up the hill, filled them with archers and slingers, and lowered them before the mouth of the cavern, so that they were able to keep back the defenders long enough to allow the main body of the Northmen to ascend from the foot of the cliff and break down the wall. This done, Sigurd caused large trees to be brought to the mouth of the cave, and roasted the miserable wretches within.” Further fights, and he at last reached Jerusalem, where he was honourably received by Baldwin, whom he assisted with his ships at the siege of Sidon. Sigurd also visited Constantinople, where the Emperor Alexius offered him his choice: either to receive six skif-pound (or about a ton of gold), or see the great games of the hippodrome. The Northman wisely chose the latter, the cost of which was said to be equal to the value of the gold offered. Sigurd presented his ships to the Emperor, and their splendid prows were hung up in the church of St. Peter, at Constantinople.
GIBRALTAR: THE NEUTRAL GROUND.
In the year 1319, Pedro, Infante of Castile, fought the Moors at Granada. The latter were the victors, and their spoils were enormous, consisting in part of forty-three hundredweights of gold, one hundred and forty hundredweights of silver, with armour, arms, and horses in abundance. Fifty thousand Castilians were slain, and among the captives were the wife and children of the Infante. Gibraltar, then in the hands of Spain, with Tarifa and eighteen castles of the district, were offered, and refused for her ransom. The body of the Infante himself was stripped of its skin, and stuffed and hung over the gate of Granada.
The third siege occurred in the reign of Mohammed IV., when the Spanish held the Rock. The governor at that time, Vasco Perez de Meira, was an avaricious and dishonest man, who embezzled the dues and other resources of the place and neglected his charge. During the siege, a grain-ship fell on shore,73 and its cargo would have enabled him to hold out a long time. Instead of feeding his soldiers, who were reduced to eating leather, he gave and sold it to his prisoners, with the expectation of either getting heavy ransoms for them, or, if he should have to surrender, of making better terms for himself. It availed him nothing, for he had to capitulate; and then, not daring to face his sovereign, Alfonso XI., he had to flee to Africa, where he ended his days.
Alfonso besieged it twice. The first time the Granadians induced him to abandon it, promising a heavy ransom; the next time he commenced by reducing the neighbouring town of Algeciras, which was defended with great energy. When the Spaniards brought forward their wheeled towers of wood, covered with raw hides, the Moors discharged cannon loaded with red-hot balls. This is noteworthy, for cannon was not used by the English till three years after, at the battle of Creçy, while it is the first recorded instance of red-hot shot being used at all.74 It is further deserving of notice, that the very means employed at Algeciras were afterwards so successfully used at the great siege. After taking Algeciras, Alfonso blockaded Gibraltar, when the plague broke out in his camp; he died from it, and the Rock remained untaken. This was the epoch of one of those great pestilences which ravaged Europe. Fifty thousand souls perished in London in 1348 from its effects; Florence lost two-thirds of her population; in Saragossa three hundred died daily. The sixth attack on the part of the King of Fez was unsuccessful; as was that in 1436, when it was besieged by a wealthy noble—one of the De Gusmans. His forces were allowed to land in numbers on a narrow beach below the fortress, where they were soon exposed to the rising of the tide and the missiles of the besieged. De Gusman was drowned, and his body, picked up by the