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Nordics, sly Greeks, slave traders of giant stature
from western Africa, and Moroccan pirates, on the
lookout for the arrival dates of ships with cargoes of
gold. Gold tinkled in many tongues. Its glitter was
reflected in every racial pigment.
Gold enough here for him who knew how to grasp
it! The gold and silver received by Cádiz from
America in the course of a single year (1790) was
valued at upwards of thirty million dollars. Gold
became so common a commodity in the town that even
dogs, despising their golden chains, are said to have
preferred liberty. Only human beings continued
faithful to the precious metal.
With the sudden boom in steam tonnage about the
year 1880, Cadiz suffered a setback as the warehouse
of the Old World. No harbor could boast a more
favorable situation. It lay hard by the Straits with
their swift currents and their hostile winds, which often
made it a dangerous business, full of financial risk, for
sailing ships to continue their journey to the far-flung
and rich coasts of the Mediterranean Sea.
But the steamer, unlike the sailing ship, is not
limited to destinations by the open sea, with its wide
waters and regular winds. The steamer can sail
against the wind and against the current, can
negotiate narrow straits and sail up navigable rivers,
discharging a little cargo in one place, then in another,
serving as a connection between any port and all the
rest of the world outside. The steamer made
trans-shipping, middlemen, staple-marts unnecessary. This
was the end of Cádiz as a trading center. It suffered
its final blow when Spain lost its colonies in 1898,
which deprived the city of its significance as a
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