The isthmus is a sandy level, with patches of grass and vegetables, two parallel lines of British and Spanish sentinels, barracks of a squalid character for the Spanish soldiery, and still more squalid hovels for Spanish peasants. Here the ruins of Fort St. Philip remind us of the former existence of Spanish military works of a formidable character. Philip V. erected in 1751 two advanced forts, now heaps of shattered masonry; one called after his tutelar saint, Felipe, the other after Santa Barbara, the patroness of the Spanish artillery. They were so strong, says Ford, that when the French advanced, in the Peninsular War, the modern Spaniards, being unable even to destroy them, called in the aid of our British engineers, under Colonel Harding, by [Illustration: CATALAN BAY FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN BATTERY. _Page 131._ ] whom they were effectually dismantled. This is at least _un fait accompli_, and they never ought to be allowed to be rebuilt, adds Ford, since to raise works before a fortress is a declaration of war; and as Buonaparte’s announced intention was to take Gibraltar, Sir Colin Campbell (afterwards Lord Clyde) was perfectly justified in clearing them away, even without leave or license from the Spaniards. It was fortunate for many Spaniards that Campbell effected this work of destruction, for thus General Ballasteros was saved from annihilation, when the French pursued him and his undisciplined mob of troops, by skulking under our guns. Yet no sooner was Ferdinand VII. replaced on the throne of Spain by British arms, than this man urged him to reconstruct the lines as both dangerous and offensive to England. Thereupon said General Don to the Spanish commander at Algesiras, “If you begin, I will fire a gun; if that won’t do, I shall fire another; and if you persevere, you shall have a broadside from the galleries.” So the lines were never rebuilt. * * * * * Carteia was in old days a Phœnician colony, situated at the point where the river Guadaranque enters Gibraltar Bay, and forms a small but sheltered port. The Phœnicians called it Melcarthes, in honour of their tutelary god, the African Hercules; and for centuries it flourished as the emporium of a very extensive commerce. Having fallen into the hands of the Romans, it was renamed Carteia; and it is mentioned in the annals of the Second Punic War as an important naval station, and the scene of a great sea-fight, in which Lælius defeated the Carthaginian Hadherbal, B.C. 206. Thirty-five years later, the Roman senate assigned it as a place of residence to upwards of four thousand men, the offspring of Roman soldiers and Spanish women, who had been manumitted by the prætor L. Canubius. They amalgamated with such of the inhabitants as chose to remain, and their city was declared a _Latina colonia libertinorum_. Such is Livy’s statement.