We were under weigh at daylight with a light wind; but were baffled all day by the currents. There was no room to complain of detention with such a panorama--so many monuments of man to recall, and such a phenomenon of Nature as the currents to pry into. Close on the right were the brows and bays of Andalusia bearing strange-looking towers. On the left the bold and beautiful mountains of Abyla. Behind, the rock of Gibraltar presents itself as a point isolated from the land, and in the middle of the Mediterranean. Before us opened the ocean, from which rushed in the never-tiring stream. In the bay which we had quitted stood Carteia, founded and peopled by the inhabitants of the coast of Palestine. On the African shore, opposite its rival in antiquity, if not in splendour, Ceuta. On the western coast of the African strait, the Bay of Tingis, the country of Danaus and Antæus, and round the European shore, opposed to it, Gadera, and the enchanted island of Circe. On the one side the gardens of Hesperus, on the other the fields of Hades, and between, the road to the Cassiterides. I saw before me the worshipper landing to visit the sacred groves of Calpe, and then threading his way through the then narrow passages of the channel, I could read in his thoughts and catch from his tongue the names of Atlas and of Hercules, as he saluted the one and invoked the other. Not Greece alone, nor Phœnicia, nor Egypt; not the known only, or the imagined, but all these together, seemed to converge to this passage and to settle on this spot. The great shades of the past wandered among the clouds, and the memory of every people floated upon the bosom of the stream. Had that forehead of Africa been adorned with its ancient clusters of the vine; had it borne hamlets, villages, and towns; had the ploughman and the herdsman been there, I might have admired the richness of the landscape, but should not have known its power. I landed on Pigeon’s Island to fish, but was soon lost in the problem, what becomes of the water which pours in? But I have already bestowed upon the reader my thoughts on this subject. Suddenly the wind veered round to the north-east, so we were immediately on board, and dashing away for Ceuta; but the wind dropping as suddenly, we again made for the European coast, and, aided by the tide, about midnight reached the rocky island of Tarifa, which projects into the Straits at nearly the narrowest part, and is joined by a causeway to the land. Scarcely had we come to an anchor under the rock, when it began to blow heavily from the east, the current running strongly from the west. We were entirely sheltered from both, but not from the roll of the sea; yet in the midst of this raging storm and boiling sea, stunned by the one, and tossed by the other--we felt not a breath of wind.