The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable RuinsAllen, Grant
History
The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins
Allen, Grant
Europe, Southern -- Description and travel; Mediterranean Region -- Description and travel
The internal attractions of Ceuta to a visitor are not considerable. There
are Roman remains in the neighborhood of the citadel, and the walls of the
town, with the massive archways of its gates, are well worthy of remark.
Its main feature of interest, however, is, and always will be, that rock
of many names which it thrusts forth into the Straits, to form, with its
brother column across the water, the gateway between the Eastern and the
Western World. We have already looked upon it in the distance from El
Hacho, the signal tower on the summit of the Rock of Gibraltar. Abyla,
"the mountain of God," it was styled by the Phoenicians; Gibel Mo-osa, the
hill of Musa, was its name among the Moors; it is the Cabo de Bullones of
the Spaniard, and the Apes' Hill of the Englishman. It may be well seen,
though dwarfed a little by proximity, from its neighboring waters; a
curious sight, if only for its strange contrast with the European Pillar
that we have left behind. It is shaped like a miniature Peak of Teneriffe,
with a pointed apex sloping away on either side down high-shouldered
ridges towards its companion hills, and presenting a lined and furrowed
face to the sea. It is its situation, as has been noted already, and not
its conformation, which procured it its ancient name. But however earned,
its mythical title, with all the halo of poetry and romance that the
immortal myths of Hellas have shed around every spot which they have
reached, remains to it for ever. And here we take our farewell look of the
Pillars of Hercules to right and left, and borne onwards amidstream by the
rushing current of the Straits, we pass from the modern into the ancient
world.
II
ALGIERS
"A Pearl set in Emeralds"--Two distinct towns, one ancient, one
modern--The Great Mosque--A Mohammedan religious festival--Oriental
life in perfection--The road to Mustapha Supérieur--A true Moorish
villa described--Women praying to a sacred tree--Excessive rainfall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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