ports bring their goods to this place, and American vessels carry the productions of our continent to exchange for them; so that an establishment designed at first only for a military fortress, has become a flourishing commercial mart. Boston vessels commonly carry to Gibraltar cargoes of flour, tobacco, coffee, tar, pipe-staves, &c., and take the Spanish wines and fruits in return. Sometimes, after disposing of their cargoes at Gibraltar, they take in ballast and sail for the Cape Verd Islands, where they load with salt and return home. CHAPTER III. _Voyage along the coast of Spain.--Prospect of Sicily.--Account of an Island thrown up from the bottom of the sea by a Volcano.--Arrival at Malta.--Quarantine Regulations._ Though we had been quite alone on the Atlantic, yet as soon as we entered the Mediterranean we found ourselves in company with a large fleet of vessels. We had a fair wind up the strait, and kept along with our companions for two or three days; but as the strait grew wider, and at length expanded into the broad Mediterranean sea, these vessels dispersed towards their several ports of destination. We sailed along the Spanish coast for nearly a week, and found the landscape everywhere picturesque and striking. The shore is high and abrupt at first; farther onward it rises into lofty mountains. Here the scenery became truly grand and sublime. It was mid-winter, and the mountains of Granada were covered with snow. A lofty ridge, called the Sierra Nevada, runs parallel to the shore, and rises to the height of 11,000 feet. At this time it presented a most noble sight--an immense wall of snow, glistening in the bright sunshine and towering up to the clouds. Winds are commonly regulated by the direction of the shores, especially where the coasts are mountainous. At Cape de Gatt, where the coast makes a sudden bend to the north, a change of wind is always expected by vessels sailing up the Mediterranean; and so it happened with us. The fair breeze from the west, which had hitherto driven us on our course, now shifted to a strong easterly breeze, directly in our teeth. We had also a short chopping sea, peculiar to the Mediterranean, which brings on sea-sickness to one coming from the Atlantic, although the waves of the Mediterranean never rise so high as the Atlantic billows. We beat against the wind some days, till at length it sprung up astern again, when we ran before it till we came in sight of the island of Sicily.