In the time of Herodotus they formed a perfectly familiar position; and they did not long remain the _ne plus ultra_ of human enterprise, the Phœnician mariners sailing far beyond them, and reaching the coast of Britain. Even in the days of Strabo, however, a good deal of confusion prevailed in the minds of men respecting these Pillars. He tells us that some supposed them to be islands, others rocky headlands; both rising sheer out of the sea like colossal columns. Others expected to find them indicated by cities, or columns, or statues, erected either by Hercules himself as the proud memorials of his westward conquest, or by the Tyrian seamen, dedicated to their tutelary god to commemorate the farthest limit of their discoveries. Later writers indulged in various conjectures. Pliny records the myth that Hercules rent asunder the rocks which had previously divided the Mediterranean from the ocean; while another legend asserted that he had narrowed the strait in order to exclude the sea-monsters which had hitherto forced their way from the ocean into the Mediterranean. * * * * * Let us turn from ancient fables to modern facts. The voyager who now approaches the Strait sees on the one hand the picturesque coast of Spain, with its green slopes and mountains of purple splendour, and on the other the low sandy shores of Africa, suddenly broken up by the heights of Ceuta. Gibraltar towers before him a narrow promontory of rock, facing the sea with gloomy precipices, and connected with the mainland by a low sandy isthmus. The Bay is on the western side of the promontory, which there assumes a striking and [Illustration: THE SIGNAL-STATION. _Page 119._ ] romantic appearance. Along the whole face of the lofty cliff, tier after tier, stretch ranges of formidable batteries, with the town of Gibraltar lying sheltered at the northern end. From every nook and every coign of vantage bristle heavy cannon. The midway slope, from the town to the summit of the great Rock, is occupied by white barracks and pleasant villas, which rest in the shadow of leafy groves. The eastern side, however, is one unbroken mass of precipice, relieved by none of those indications of peaceful civilization. The three principal points of the rocky ridge to which we have alluded, are the Rock Mortar, north, 1350 feet; the Signal, in the centre, 1276 feet; the Sugar-loaf Point, south, 1439 feet. The length of this ridge, which consists of limestone, completely honeycombed with caverns, is about two miles and three-quarters, with an average breadth of one half to three-quarters of a mile, and a circumference of about seven miles.