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"Just as you please," said the Doctor calmly, but with an arch smile.

They had a most delightful sail to Cadiz, during which the conversation turned upon the chief towns of Portugal. In answer to a wish expressed by Edward, implying that he should have liked to have seen Oporto, his friend replied, "You would have been disappointed, for I dare say you have conjured up a beautiful town, surrounded by orchards, vineyards and gardens.

and

Oporto is situated on a declivity, the streets are narrow, the houses ill constructed: it is true, it is noted for strong wines, of which 20,000 pipes are said to be exported annually; but it has no other attraction.

"Of the manufactories of Portugal there are but few of consequence, that of the most importance is one for silks at Braganza. The Portuguese make a few linens; but the article which they excel most in is wine casks.

"Cadiz may be called the emporium of the wealth of the two worlds, possessing almost every thing in abundance, if we except fresh water, which is sometimes hardly to be procured for any money. There are some few wells in the town, but the water is in general brackish, and the inhabitants, in order to collect rain water, have the tops of their houses flat, surrounded by a terrace ; this terrace serves them as a promenade and observatory, and the water being collected in the centre, is conveyed by pipes to the cistern, which occupies the open space in the interior of the house from whence it is drawn into another reservoir at one corner of the court.

"The entrance into this bay presents a grand sight; and both the Doctor and Edward were surprised at the prodigious number of merchant and other vessels which it contained. Cadiz has a manufacture of linen and salt; but is perhaps more interesting to a mercantile and political man than to travellers of the description of Dr. Walker and his pupil; at least they thought so, aud again embarking, they passed Trafalgar, off which the gallant Nelson lost his life, and Tarifa, where the Moors first landed when they invaded Spain; and at length entering the Straits of Gibraltar, they entered the bay of the same name, and landed at the foot of this celebrated rock.

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SECTION VII.

GIBRALTAR.

THE form of this mountain is oblong, its summit a sharp craggy ridge; its direction is nearly from north to south; and

its greatest length in that direction falls very little short of three miles. Its breadth varies with the indentations of its shores, but it no where exceeds three quarters of a mile. The line of its ridge is undulating, and the two extremes are somewhat higher than its centre. That point to the south, called the Sugar Loaf, is 1439 feet above the level of the sea; the Rock Mortar which is to the north is 1350; and the Signal House, which is nearly the central point between. the two former, is 1276 feet above the sea. The western side of the mountain is composed of a series of rugged steeps, interspersed with abrupt precipices. The northern extremity is absolutely perpendicular, except where it inclines towards the north-west: here the lines intervene, and a narrow passage of the ground that leads to the isthmus, which is covered with fortifications. The eastern side of the mountain mostly consists of a range of precipices; but a bank of sand rising from the Mediterranean in a rapid acclivity, covers a third of its perpendicular height; its eastern extremity falls in a rapid slope from the summit of the Sugar Loaf, into a rocky flat of considerable extent, called Windmill Hill. This flat forms half an oval, and is bounded by a range of precipices, at the southern base of which a second rocky flat takes place, similar in form and extent to Windmill Hill, and surrounded also like it by a precipice, the southern extremity of which is washed by the sea, and forms Europa Point, which is the part of the mountain that advances most towards Africa, and is generally regarded as the most southern promontory of Europe.

Upon the western side, this peninsular mountain is bounded by the bay of Gibraltar, which is in length nearly eight miles and a half, and in breadth upwards of five miles. In this bay the tide frequently rises four feet. Upon the north the mountain is attached to Spain by a low sandy isthmus, the greatest elevation of which above the level of the sea, does not exceed ten feet, and its breadth at the base of the rock is not more than three quarters of a mile. This isthmus separates the Mediterranean, on the east from the bay of Gibraltar on the west.

"I cannot help fancying," said Dr. Walker, “but that this rock was formerly detached from the main land. The breadth of the isthmus which attaches it to Spain, and the height of the sands above the level of the sea is so small, that it appears very probable to me, that it is an accumula

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tion deposited by the ocean. It would then too stand so distinctly as to be at first sight denominated a pillar; an appellation which it possessed formerly. This mountain is much more curious in its botanical, than in its mineralogical productions. In regard to the first, it connects in some degree the Flora of Africa with that of Europe. In respect to the latter, it produces little variety; perhaps a few substances and phenomena that are rare, but none that are peculiar. The principal mass of the rock consists of a grey dense (what is generally called primary) marble, the different beds of which are to be examined in a face of 1350 feet of perpendicular height, which it presents to Spain in a conical form. These beds, or strata, are of various thickness, from twenty to upwards of forty feet, dipping in a direction from east to west, nearly at an angle of thirty-five degrees. In some parts of the solid mass of this rock testaceous bodies have been found entirely transmuted into the constituent matter of the rock, and their interior hollows filled up with calcareous spar; but these do not occur often in its composition, and its beds are not separated by any intermediate

strata.

"In all parts of the world where this species of rock constitutes large districts, it is found to be cavernous. The caves of Gibraltar are many, and of considerable extent; and I intend Edward, that we should explore them together, and as the day is fine and temperate, we will begin our excursion immediately.”

They accordingly set off, accompanied by two guides, for St. Michael's cave. St. Michael's cave is situated upon the southern part of the mountain, almost equally distant from the Sugar Loaf and the Signal Tower. Its entrance is above 1000 feet above the level of the see, and is formed by a rapid slope of earth which has fallen into it at various periods, and which leads to a spacious hall incrusted with spar, and apparently supported in the middle by a large massy stalictal pillar. To this succeeds a long succession of caves of difficult access. And Dr. Walker and his pupil found it necessary to use great precaution in climbing up the scaling lad ders that were placed for their accommodation in passing over the precipices, which no other means could enable them to scale. They descended many of these precipices to the depth of 300 feet from the cave; but at that depth the smoke of their torches became so disagreeable, that they

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were obliged to give up their pursuit, and leave the remainder of the caves unexplored. In these cavernous recesses, the formation and process of stalactites is easily to be traced, from the flimsy quill-like cone, suspended from the roof, to the robust trunk of a pillar three feet in diameter, which rises from the floor, and seems intended by nature to support the roof from which it originated.

The variety of form, which this matter takes in its diffe. rent situations and directions, renders this subterraneous scenery strikingly picturesque. The stalactites of the caves when near the surface of the mountain, are of a brownish yellow colour; but as they descended towards the lower caves, they found them begin to lose their darkness of colour, which by degrees shaded off to a yellowish white.

The only inhabitants of these caves are bats, some of which are of a large size. The soil in general, upon the mountain of Gibraltar is but thinly sown; and in many parts that thin covering has been washed off by the heavy autumnal rains, which have left the superficies of the rock, for a considerable extent, bare and open to inspection. In those situations, an observing eye may trace the effects of the slow but constant decomposition of the rock, caused by its exposure to the air, and the corrosion of sea salts, which in the heavy gales of easterly winds are deposited with the spray in every part of the mountain. Those uncovered parts of the mountain rock, also expose to the eye a phenomenon worthy of some attention, as it tends clearly to demonstrate, that however high the surface of this rock may now be elevated above the level of the sea, it has once been the bed of agitated waters. This phenomenon is to be observed in many parts of the rock, and is constantly to be found in the beds of torrents. It consists of pot-like holes of various sizes, hollowed out of the solid rock, and formed apparently by the attrition of gravel or pebbles, set in motion by the rapidity of rivers, or currents in the sea. One of these which had been recently laid open, our travellers examined with attention. They found it to be five feet deep, and three feet in diameter; the edge of its mouth rounded off as if by art, and its sides and bottom retaining a considerable degree of polish. From its mouth, for three and a half feet downwards, it was filled with a red argillaceous earth, thinly mixed with minute particles of transparent quartz crystals; the remaining foot and a half to the bottom contained an ag

gregate of water worn stones, which were from the size of a goose's egg to that of a walnut, and consisted of red jaspers, yellowish white flints, white quartz, and blueish white agates, firmly combined by a yellowish brown stalactal calcareous spar. In this breccia I could not discover any fragment of the mountain rock, or any other calcareous matter, except the cement with which it was combined. This pot is nine hundred feet above the level of the sea.

On the west side of the mountain are found quartz crystals colourless, and perfectly transparent. These crystals are composed of eighteen planes disposed in hexangular columns, terminated at both extremities by hexangular pyramids; the larger of these does not exceed two-eighths of an inch in length; they in general adhere to the rock by the sides of the column, but are easily detached. Their great degree of transparency has procured them the name of Gibraltar diamonds. In the perpendicular fissures of the rock, and in some of the caverns of the mountain (all of which afford evident proofs of their former connection with the surface) a calcareous concretion is found of a reddish brown ferruginous colour, with an earthy fracture, and considerable induration inclosing the bones of various animals, some of which were formerly supposed to be human; but the cele brated Dr. Hunter, ascertained that they belonged to some quadruped. These bones are of various sizes, and lie in all directions, intermixed with shells and snails, fragments of the calcareous rock, and particles of spar, all of which are still to be seen in their natural uncombined state, partially scattered over the mountain. These having been swept by heavy rains at different periods from the surface into the situations above described, and having remained for a long scries of years in those places of rest, exposed to the permeating action of water, have become cemented and surrounded by the calcareous matter which it deposits. bones in the composition have not the smallest appearance of being petrified; and if they have undergone any change, it is more like that of calcination than petrification, as the most solid parts of them generally admit of being cut and scraped down with the same ease as chalk. This mountain is very much infested with monkeys.

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Our travellers having explored the caves and other natural curiosities of Gibraltar, they proceeded to take a view of its fortifications, which are upon a most extensive scale;

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