Whoever the primæval inhabitants of “the Rock” may have been, and their skulls and bones found in the stalagmitic limestone of the caves show they were of no high class but merely cave-dwellers, they were followed, somewhere about the eighth century, by the Moors. This curious wave of invasion from the East seems to have simply skirted the northern parts of Africa, until it reached what is now Algeria. It never penetrated far south, and yet it represents one of the few traces of civilisation in the dark continent. Most curious of all is it that African aborigines have done so little for themselves. All the civilising waves have been immigrant, from those who built the dead cities of Mashonaland to the men who have made Buluwayo. Such civilisation as North Africa possesses has been wholly of foreign origin. The negro race has done nothing worth mentioning, and it may well be believed, after the experience of Liberia, never will. So that the Arab invasion sought for other outlets for its expansion than the warmer clime of Mid or Central Africa. Reaching Algiers, Tarik the Conqueror passed across the straits to the peninsula of Gibraltar, and built there, somewhere about 725, a castle of which the existing Moorish tower may be a relic. It remained in Mohammedan hands for seven hundred and forty-eight years, and then, captured by the Spaniards, was remodelled, the “Gebel al Tarik” becoming Christian “Gibraltar.” Its present arms, a castle with a key pendent at the gate, granted by Henry IV. of Castile, refer to its condition as a fortress once the key to the Mediterranean, but now, with the improvements in the range and size of modern guns, of less value than heretofore. In 1704 the place was but feebly garrisoned, and fell mainly owing to the silencing of the batteries by the squadron and their occupation then by seamen landed from the ships. The troops, under the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, meanwhile occupied the isthmus until the fortress surrendered. So important a capture was not likely to be agreed to without a further struggle, and in 1705 the Marquis de Villadarius was despatched to formally besiege it. The garrison, however, had been reinforced by the 13th and 35th Regiments, a battalion of Guards, and some Dutch troops, and though several gallant efforts were made to carry the place by assault they successively failed, and after seven months the siege was abandoned and converted into a partial blockade. It had cost the Spaniards and French some 10,000 men, but the garrison lost only some 400.