We looked out on the placid water, laughing in the Sunday morning sunlight, and tried to imagine those vanished fleets--stately ships of the line with their banks of guns; smart frigates and rakish cutters--all that splendid concourse of black hull and towering canvas, and then the boom and the flash of guns--the conflict and the glory of that morning so long ago. This much was real, and it was romance; not even the Reprobates could brush away the bloom. The captain came by and pointed ahead to Tarifa, where the Barbary pirates a long time ago levied tribute on the merchants and added the word "tariff" to the dictionary. Their old castle has fallen into ruin, but the old industry still thrives, under the same name. Then we went back to starboard again for a look at Tangier, where, alas, we were not to land, because Algiers had been provided for us instead. [Illustration: BUT NOW GIBRALTAR, THE CROUCHING LION OF TRAFALGAR, HAD RISEN FROM THE SEA] But now Gibraltar, the crouching lion of Trafalgar, had risen from the sea. The English call it "The Rock," and that is just what it looks like--a big bowlder shaped like a sleeping lion--its head toward Spain, its tail toward Africa. I think most persons have an idea that the Rock lies lengthwise, east and west--I know I thought so. Instead it lies north and south, and is really a stone finger pointed by Spain toward the African coast. It is Great Britain's pride--it has cost enough for her to be proud of it--and is her chief stronghold. About it are gathered her warships of to-day--dark, low-browed fighters like our own--any one of them able to send to the bottom a whole fleet like Nelson's and the combined fleets besides. They look quiet enough, ugly enough, and drowsy enough, now. So does Gibraltar, but it is just as well, perhaps, not to twist the Lion's tail. We had no intention of doing so, and I don't see why they were so afraid of us. They wouldn't let us visit their shooting-galleries--the galleries where they keep their big guns, I mean; they wouldn't let us climb the Rock on the outside; they wouldn't even let us visit an old Moorish castle which stands about half-way up. Perhaps they thought we would spike their guns, or steal the castle, or blow up the Rock with infernal machines.