During the year 1145 a famous landmark of the Mediterranean, of unknown antiquity, but most probably of Phœnician origin, was destroyed. Near the city of Cadiz, and built in the waters of the bay, had long stood a structure composed of a series of columns, rising above each other to the height of one hundred and eighty feet and surmounted by a colossal statue of bronze. The latter represented a man with his right arm extended towards the Strait of Gibraltar and grasping in his hand a key. The entire statue was heavily plated with gold, and was a conspicuous object for a distance of many leagues. Its origin was not less mysterious than the reason for its preservation for nearly four centuries and a half after the Moslem conquest. The well-known iconoclastic propensities of the followers of Mohammed were indulged with every opportunity and against every symbol of idolatrous worship. There was probably no souvenir of Pagan antiquity in Africa or Spain so prominent and so well known as the effigy which, for a period unrecorded even by tradition, indicated to the mariner the gateway of the Mediterranean. The Romans and the Goths, confounding it with the two historic promontories of Europe and Africa, called the imposing structure that supported it the Pillars of Hercules. But it certainly had no connection with that divinity. His temple stood some miles away upon an island, and it was the distinctive peculiarity of his worship among the Phœnicians that he was never represented under a physical form. To the Arabs the statue was known as “The Idol of Cadiz.” A singular fatality had preserved it from the zeal and fury of early sectaries of Islam. It had, no doubt, often awakened the pious horror of devout pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the western Mecca. It had stimulated the curiosity of the antiquary during the scientific period of the khalifate. It had pointed the way to many an invading squadron. It had witnessed the success or the failure of many revolutions. The truculent Norman pirates had viewed its gigantic dimensions with superstitious terror. In the sagas of Scandinavia is preserved the tradition that St. Olaf and his freebooters were, during the eleventh century, deterred from further prosecution of their ravages on the coast of the Peninsula by a vision which its presence inspired. Its immunity from the effects of fanaticism is not less remarkable than its long exemption from the violence of rapacious marauders. A great treasure was said to be concealed beneath the foundations of the tower. It was also the general belief--not confined to the Peninsula, but prevalent throughout Europe--that this famous statue was of solid gold. Its brilliancy, which had remained untarnished by exposure for so many centuries, tended to confirm, if not to absolutely establish, this opinion.