The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism Volume I Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOORISH TOWER AT GIBRALTAR.]

England won Gibraltar during the War of the Succession, when she was allied with Austria and Holland against Spain and France. The war had dragged on with varied results till 1704, when it was determined to attack Spain at home with the aid of the Portuguese. The commanders of the allied fleets and troops-_i.e._, the Landgrave George of Hesse-Darmstadt, Sir George Rooke, Admiral Byng, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Admiral Leake, and the three Dutch admirals-determined to attack Gibraltar, believed to be weak in forces and stores. On the 21st of July, 1704, the fleet, which consisted of forty-five s.h.i.+ps, six frigates, besides fire and bomb-s.h.i.+ps, came to an anchor off the Rock, and landed 5,000 men, so as to at once cut off the supplies of the garrison. The commanders of the allied forces sent, on the morning after their arrival, a demand for the surrender of Gibraltar to the Archduke Charles, whose claims as rightful King of Spain they were supporting. The little garrison(76) answered valiantly; and had their brave governor, the Marquis Diego de Salinas, been properly backed, the fortress might have been Spain's to-day. The opening of the contest was signalised by the burning of a French privateer, followed by a furious cannonading: the new and old moles were speedily silenced, and large numbers of marines landed. The contest was quite unequal, and the besieged soon offered to capitulate with the honours of war, the right of retaining their property, and six days' provisions. The garrison had three days allowed for its departure, and those, as well as the inhabitants of the Rock, who chose, might remain, with full civil and religious rights. Thus, in three days' time the famous fortress fell into the hands of the allies, and possession was taken in the name of Charles III. Sir George Rooke, however, over-rode this, and pulled down the standard of Charles, setting up in its stead that of England. A garrison of 1,800 English seamen was landed. The English were, alone of the parties then present, competent to hold it; and at the Peace of Utrecht, 1711, it was formally ceded "absolutely, with all manner of right for ever, without exemption or impediment," to Great Britain.

The Spaniards departed from the fortress they had valiantly defended, the majority remaining at St. Roque. "Like some of the Moors whom they had dispossessed, their descendants are said to preserve until this day the records and family doc.u.ments which form the bases of claims upon property on that Rock, which, for more than a century and a half, has known other masters."

Rooke went absolutely unrewarded. He was persistently ignored by the Government of the day, and being a man of moderate fortune, consulted his own dignity, and retired to his country seat. The same year, 1704, the Spanish again attempted, with the aid of France, to take Gibraltar.

England had only three months to strengthen and repair the fortifications, and the force brought against the Rock was by no means contemptible, including as it did a fleet of two-and-twenty French men-of-war. Succour arrived; Sir John Leake succeeded in driving four of the enemy's s.h.i.+ps ash.o.r.e. An attempt to escalade the fortress was made, under the guidance of a native goat-herd. He, with a company of men, succeeded in reaching the signal station, where a hard fight occurred, and our troops killed or disabled 160 men, and took the remnant prisoners. Two sallies were made from the Rock with great effect, while an attempt made by the enemy to enter through a narrow breach resulted in a sacrifice of 200 lives. A French fleet, under Pointe, arrived; the English admiral captured three and destroyed one of them-that of Pointe himself. To make a six months'

story short, the a.s.sailants lost 10,000 men, and then had to raise the siege. Although on several occasions our rulers have since the Peace of Utrecht proposed to cede or exchange the fortress, the spirit of the people would not permit it; and there can be no doubt whatever that our right to Gibraltar is not merely that of possession-nine points of the law-but cession wrung from a people unable to hold it. And that, in war, is fair.

Twenty years later Spain again attempted to wring it from us. Mr.

Stanhope, then our representative at Madrid, was told by Queen Isabella: "Either relinquish Gibraltar or your trade with the Indies." We still hold Gibraltar, and our trade with the Indies is generally regarded as a tolerably good one. In December, 1726, peace or war was made the alternative regarding the cession; another bombardment followed. An officer(77) present said that it was so severe that "we seemed to live in flames." Negotiations for peace followed at no great distance of time, and the Spaniards suddenly drew off from the attack. Various offers, never consummated, were made for an exchange. Pitt proposed to cede it in exchange for Minorca, Spain to a.s.sist in recovering it from the French. At another time, Oran, a third-cla.s.s port on the Mediterranean sh.o.r.es of Africa, was offered in exchange; and Mr. Fitzherbert, our diplomatist, was told that the King of Spain was "determined never to put a period to the present war" if we did not agree to the terms; and again, that Oran "ought to be accepted with grat.i.tude." The tone of Spain altered very considerably a short time afterwards, when the news arrived of the destruction of the floating batteries, and the failure of the grand attack.(78) This was at the last-the great siege of history. A few additional details may be permitted before we pa.s.s to other subjects.

The actual siege occupied three years and seven months, and for one year and nine months the bombardment went on without cessation. The actual losses on the part of the enemy can hardly be estimated; 1,473 were killed, wounded, or missing on the floating batteries alone. But for brave Curtis, who took a pinnace to the rescue of the poor wretches on the batteries, then in flames, and the ammunition of which was exploding every minute, more than 350 fresh victims must have gone to their last account.

His boat was engulfed amid the falling ruins; a large piece of timber fell through its flooring, killing the c.o.xswain and wounding others. The sailors stuffed their jackets into the leak, and succeeded in saving the lives of 357 of their late enemies. For many days consecutively they had been peppering us at the rate of 6,500 shots, and over 2,000 sh.e.l.ls each twenty-four hours. With the destruction of the floating batteries "the siege was virtually concluded. The contest was at an end, and the united strength of two ambitious and powerful nations had been humbled by a straitened garrison of 6,000 effective men."(79) Our losses were comparatively small, though thrice the troops were on the verge of famine.

At the period of the great siege the Rock mounted only 100 guns; now it has 1,000, many of them of great calibre. In France, victory for the allies was regarded as such a foregone conclusion that "a drama, ill.u.s.trative of the destruction of Gibraltar by the floating batteries, was acted nightly to applauding thousands!"(80) The siege has, we believe, been a favourite subject at the minor English theatres many a time since; but it need not be stated that the views taken of the result were widely different to those popular at that time in Paris.

Gibraltar has had an eventful history even since the great siege. In 1804 a terrible epidemic swept the Rock; 5,733 out of a population of 15,000 died in a few weeks. The climate is warm and pleasant, but it is not considered the most healthy of localities even now. And on the 28th of October, 1805, the _Victory_, in tow of the _Neptune_, entered the bay, with the body of Nelson on board. The fatal shot had done its work; only eleven days before he had written to General Fox one of his happy, pleasant letters.

The Rock itself is a compact limestone, a form of grey dense marble varied by beds of red sandstone. It abounds in caves and fissures, and advantage has been taken of these facts to bore galleries, the most celebrated of which are St. Michael's and Martin's, the former 1,100 feet above the sea.

Tradition makes it a barren rock; but the botanists tell us differently.

There are 456 species of indigenous flowering plants, besides many which have been introduced. The advantages of its natural position have been everywhere utilised. It bristles with batteries, many of which can hardly be seen. Captain Sayer tells us that every spot where a gun could be brought to bear on an enemy has one. "Wandering," says he, "through the geranium-edged paths on the hill-side, or clambering up the rugged cliffs to the eastward, one stumbles unexpectedly upon a gun of the heaviest metal lodged in a secluded nook, with its ammunition, round shot, canister, and case piled around it, ready at any instant.... The shrubs and flowers that grow on the cultivated places, and are preserved from injury with so much solicitude, are often but the masks of guns, which lie crouched beneath the leaves ready for the port-fire." Everywhere, all stands ready for defence. War and peace are strangely mingled.

Gibraltar has one of the finest colonial libraries in the world, founded by the celebrated Colonel Drinkwater, whose account of the great siege is still the standard authority. The town possesses some advantages; but as 15,000 souls out of a population of about double that number are crowded into one square mile, it is not altogether a healthy place-albeit much improved of late years. Rents are exorbitant; but ordinary living and bad liquors are cheap. It is by no means the best place in the world for "Jack ash.o.r.e," for, as Shakespeare tells us, "sailors" are "but men," and there be "land rats and water rats," who live on their weaknesses. The town has a very mongrel population, of all shades of colour and character. Alas!

the monkeys, who were the first inhabitants of the Rock-tailless Barbary apes-are now becoming scarce. Many a poor Jocko has fallen from the enemy's shot, killed in battles which he, at least, never provoked.

The scenery of the Straits, which we are now about to enter, is fresh and pleasant, and as we commenced with an extract from one well-known poet, we may be allowed to finish with that of another, which, if more hackneyed, is still expressive and beautiful. Byron's well-known lines will recur to many of our readers:-

"Through Calpe's Straits survey the steepy sh.o.r.e; Europe and Afric on each other gaze!

Lands of the dark-eyed maid and dusky Moor Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze; How softly on the Spanish sh.o.r.e she plays, Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown, Distinct though darkening with her waning phase."

In the distance gleams Mons Abyla-the Apes' Hill of sailors-a term which could have been, for a very long time, as appropriately given to Gibraltar. It is the other sentinel of the Straits; while Ceuta, the strong fortress built on its flanks, is held by Spain on Moorish soil, just as we hold the Rock of Rocks on theirs. Its name is probably a corruption of _Septem_-Seven-from the number of hills on which it is built. It is to-day a military prison, there usually being here two or three thousand convicts, while both convicts and fortress are guarded by a strong garrison of 3,500 soldiers. These in their turn were, only a few years ago, guarded by the jealous Moors, who shot both guards and prisoners if they dared to emerge in the neighbourhood. There is, besides, a town, as at Gibraltar, with over 15,000 inhabitants, and at the present day holiday excursions are commonly made across the Straits in strong little steamers or other craft. The tide runs into the Straits from the Atlantic at the rate of four or more knots per hour, and yet all this water, with that of the innumerable streams and rivers which fall into the Mediterranean, scarcely suffice to raise a perceptible tide! What becomes of all this water? Is there a hole in the earth through which it runs off?

Hardly: evaporation is probably the true secret of its disappearance: and that this is the reason is proved by the greater saltness of the Mediterranean as compared with the Atlantic.

In sailor's parlance, "going aloft" has a number of meanings. He climbs the slippery shrouds to "go aloft;" and when at last, like poor Tom Bowling, he lies a "sheer hulk," and-

"His body's under hatches, His soul has '_gone aloft_.'"

"Going-aloft" in the Mediterranean has a very different meaning: it signifies pa.s.sing upwards and eastwards from the Straits of Gibraltar.(81) We are now going aloft to Malta, a British possession hardly second to that of the famed Rock itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MALTA.]

CHAPTER VII.

ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).

MALTA AND THE SUEZ Ca.n.a.l.

Calypso's Isle-A Convict Paradise-Malta, the "Flower of the World"-The Knights of St. John-Rise of the Order-The Crescent and the Cross-The Siege of Rhodes-L'Isle Adam in London-The Great Siege of Malta-Horrible Episodes-Malta in French and English Hands-St. Paul's Cave-The Catacombs-Modern Incidents-The s.h.i.+pwreck of St. Paul-Gales in the Mediterranean-Experiences of Nelson and Collingwood-Squalls in the Bay of San Francisco-A Man Overboard-Special Winds of the Mediterranean-The Suez Ca.n.a.l and M.

de Lesseps-His Diplomatic Career-Sad Pacha as a Boy-As a Viceroy-The Plan Settled-Financial Troubles-Construction of the Ca.n.a.l-The Inauguration Fete-Suez-Pa.s.sage of the Children of Israel through the Red Sea.

Approaching Malta, we must "not in silence pa.s.s Calypso's Isle." Warburton describes it, in his delightful work on the East(82)-a cla.s.sic on the Mediterranean-as a little paradise, with all the beauties of a continent in miniature; little mountains with craggy summits, little valleys with cascades and rivers, lawny meadows and dark woods, trim gardens and tangled vineyards-all within a circuit of five or six miles.

One or two uninhabited little islands, "that seem to have strayed from the continent and lost their way," dot the sea between the pleasant penal settlement and Gozo, which is also a claimant for the doubtful honour of Calypso's Isle. Narrow straits separate it from the rock, the "inhabited quarry," called Malta, of which Valetta is the port. The capital is a cross between a Spanish and an Eastern town; most of its streets are flights of steps.

Although the climate is delightful, it is extremely warm, and there is usually a glare of heat about the place, owing to its rocky nature and limited amount of tree-shade. "All Malta," writes Tallack,(83) "seems to be light yellow-light yellow rocks, light yellow fortifications, light yellow stone walls, light yellow flat-topped houses, light yellow palaces, light yellow roads and streets." Stones and stone walls are the chief and conspicuous objects in a Maltese landscape; and for good reason, for the very limited soil is propped up and kept in bounds by them on the hills.

With the scanty depth of earth the vegetation between the said stone walls is wonderful. The green bushy carob and p.r.i.c.kly cactus are to be seen; but in the immediate neighbourhood of Malta few trees, only an occasional and solitary palm. Over all, the bright blue sky; around, the deep blue sea.

You must not say anything to a Maltese against it; with him it is "Flor del Mondo"-the "Flower of the World."

The poorest natives live in capital stone houses, many of them with facades and fronts which would be considered ornamental in an English town. The terraced roofs make up to its cooped inhabitants the s.p.a.ce lost by building. There are five or six hundred promenadable roofs in the city.

Tallack says that the island generally is the abode of industry and contentment. Expenses are high, except as regards the purchase of fruits, including the famed "blood," "Mandolin" (sometimes called quite as correctly "Mandarin") oranges, and j.a.pan medlars, and Marsala wine from Sicily. The natives live simply, as a rule, but the officers and foreign residents commonly do not; and it is true here, as Ford says of the military gentlemen at Gibraltar, that their faces often look somewhat redder than their jackets in consequence. As in India, many unwisely adopt the high living of their cla.s.s, in a climate where a cool and temperate diet is indispensable.

The four great characteristics of Malta are soldiers, priests, goats, and bells-the latter not being confined to the necks of the goats, but jangling at all hours from the many church towers. The goats pervade everywhere; there is scarcely any cow's milk to be obtained in Malta. They may often be seen with sheep, as in the patriarchal days of yore, following their owners, in accordance with the pastoral allusions of the Bible.

What nature commenced in Valetta, art has finished. It has a land-locked harbour-really several, running into each other-surrounded by high fortified walls, above which rise houses, and other fortifications above them. There are galleries in the rock following the Gibraltar precedent, and batteries bristling with guns; barracks, magazines, large docks, foundry, lathe-rooms, and a bakery for the use of the "United" Service.

To every visitor the gorgeous church of San Giovanni, with its vaulted roof of gilded arabesque, its crimson hangings, and carved pulpits, is a great object of interest. Its floor resembles one grand escutcheon-a mosaic of knightly tombs, recalling days when Malta was a harbour of saintly refuge and princely hospitality for crusaders and pilgrims of the cross. An inner chapel is guarded by ma.s.sive silver rails, saved from the French by the cunning of a priest, who, on their approach, painted them wood-colour, and their real nature was never suspected. But amid all the splendour of the venerable pile, its proudest possession to-day is a bunch of old rusty keys-the keys of Rhodes, the keys of the Knights of St. John.

What history is not locked up with those keys! There is hardly a country in Europe, Asia, or Northern Africa, the history of which has not been more or less entangled with that of these Knights of the Cross, who, driven by the conquering Crescent from Jerusalem, took refuge successively in Cyprus, Rhodes, Candia, Messina, and finally, Malta.

The island had an important place in history and commerce long ere that period. The Phnicians held it 700 years; the Greeks a century and a half.

The Romans retained it for as long a period as the Phnicians; and after being ravaged by Goths and Vandals, it was for three and a half centuries an appanage of the crown of Byzantium. Next came the Arabs, who were succeeded by the Normans, and soon after it had become a German possession, Charles V. presented it to the homeless knights.

In the middle of the eleventh century, some merchants of the then flouris.h.i.+ng commercial city of Amalfi obtained permission to erect three hostelries or hospitals in the Holy City, for the relief of poor and invalided pilgrims. On the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the position and prospects of the hospitals of St. John became greatly improved. The organisation became a recognised religious order, vowing poverty, obedience, and chast.i.ty. Its members were distinguished by a white cross of four double points worn on a black robe, of the form commonly to be met in the Maltese filigree jewellery of to-day, often to be noted in our West End and other shops. Branch hospitals spread all over Europe with the same admirable objects, and the order received constant acquisitions of property. Under the guidance of Raymond du Puy, military service was added to the other vows, and the monks became the White Cross Knights.(84) Henceforth each seat of the order became a military garrison in addition to a hospice, and each knight held himself in readiness to aid with his arms his distressed brethren against the infidel.

Slowly but surely the Crescent overshadowed the Cross: the Holy City had to be evacuated. The pious knights, after wandering first to Cyprus, settled quietly in Rhodes, where for two centuries they maintained a st.u.r.dy resistance against the Turks. At the first siege, in 1480, a handful of the former resisted 70,000 of the latter. The bombardment was so terrific that it is stated to have been heard a hundred miles off, and for this extraordinary defence, Peter d'Aubusson, Grand Master, was made a cardinal by the Pope. At the second siege, L'Isle Adam, with 600 Knights of St. John, and 4,500 troops, resisted and long repelled a force of 200,000 infidels. But the odds were too great against him, and after a brave but hopeless defence, which won admiration even from the enemy, L'Isle Adam capitulated. After personal visits to the Pope, and to the Courts of Madrid, Paris, and London, the then almost valueless Rock of Malta was bestowed on the knights in 1530. Its n.o.ble harbours, and deep and sheltered inlets were then as now, but there was only one little town, called Burgo-Valetta as yet was not.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEFENCE OF MALTA BY THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN AGAINST THE TURKS IN 1565.]

In London, L'Isle Adam lodged at the provincial hostelry of the order, St.

John's Clerkenwell, still a house of entertainment, though of a very different kind. Henry VIII. received him with apparent cordiality, and shortly afterwards confiscated all the English possessions of the knights!

This was but a trifle among their troubles, for in 1565 they were again besieged in Malta. Their military knowledge, and especially that of their leader, the great La Valette, had enabled them to already strongly fortify the place. La Valette had 500 knights and 9,000 soldiers, while the Turks had 30,000 fighting men, conveyed thither in 200 galleys, and were afterwards reinforced by the Algerine corsair, Drugot, and his men. A desperate resistance was made: 2,000 Turks were killed in a single day.

The latter took the fortress of St. Elmo, with the loss of Drugot-just before the terror of the Mediterranean-who was killed by a splinter of rock, knocked off by a cannon-ball in its flight. The garrison was at length reduced to sixty men, who attended their devotions in the chapel for the last time. Many of these were fearfully wounded, but even then the old spirit a.s.serted itself, and they desired to be carried to the ramparts in chairs to lay down their lives in obedience to the vows of their order.

Next day few of that devoted sixty were alive, a very small number escaping by swimming. The attempts on the other forts, St. Michael and St.

Angelo, were foiled. Into the Eastern Harbour (now the Grand), Mustapha ordered the dead bodies of the Christian knights and soldiers to be cast.

They were spread out on boards in the form of a cross, and floated by the tide across to the besieged with La Valette, where they were sorrowfully taken up and interred. In exasperated retaliation, La Valette fired the heads of the Turkish slain back at their former companions-a horrible episode of a fearful struggle. St. Elmo alone cost the lives of 8,000 Turks, 150 Knights of St. John, and 1,300 of their men. After many false promises of a.s.sistance, and months of terrible suspense and suffering, an auxiliary force arrived from Sicily, and the Turks retired. Out of the 9,500 soldiers and knights who were originally with La Valette, only 500 were alive at the termination of the great siege.

This memorable defence was the last of the special exploits of the White Cross Knights, and they rested on their laurels, the order becoming wealthy, luxurious, and not a little demoralised. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the confiscation of their property in France naturally followed; for they had been helping Louis XVI. with their revenues just previously. Nine years later, Napoleon managed, by skilful intrigues, to obtain quiet possession of Malta. But he could not keep it, for after two years of blockade it was won by Great Britain, and she has held it ever since. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, our possession was formally ratified. We hold it on as good a t.i.tle as we do Gibraltar, by rights acknowledged at the signing of the Peace Treaty.(85)

The supposed scene of St. Paul's s.h.i.+pwreck is constantly visited, and although some have doubted whether the Melita of St. Luke is not the island of the same name in the Adriatic, tradition and probability point to Malta.(86) At St. Paul's Bay, there is a small chapel over the cave, with a statue of the apostle in marble, with the viper in his hand.

Colonel Shaw tells us that the priest who shows the cave recommended him to take a piece of the stone as a specific against s.h.i.+pwreck, saying, "Take away as much as you please, you will not diminish the cave." Some of the priests aver that there is a miraculous renovation, and that it cannot diminis.h.!.+ and when they tell you that under one of the Maltese churches the great apostle did _penance_ in a cell for three months, it looks still more as though they are drawing on their imagination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATACOMBS AT CITTA VECCHIA, MALTA.]