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96 DAYS IN THE SUN
terranean. I regret that I am unable to join them and
content myself with my seat gripping the rock as
tightly as I can with my feet, and staring about in all
directions.
On the other side of the strait lies Africa, with the
second pillar of Hercules, Ceuta; beneath my feet is
the Strait, with its white sails and long streaks of
smoke; I have the Mediterranean on the east and the
Atlantic Ocean on the west. Northward lies Spain
with its richly colored naked mountains—I can see
half of Andalusia, from Cape Tarifa across the cork-
forests all the way in to Jerez, the rocky plateau of
Ronda, the coastal regions skirting Malaga with the
Huertas and the cities, and the white battlements of
the Sierra Nevada more than one hundred miles away.
There is a hollow clang of activity in the inside of
the rock, as if the monster retched. If it should now
discharge all its two thousand cannons, at once, would
I be able to retain my seat? Would I be shaken off my
saddle? In spite of these two thousand modern gul-
lets of fire and in spite of the fact that there is room in-
side the rock for one hundred and fifty thousand men
with provisions for two years, while six thousand men
are said to be sufficient to hold the rock against at-
tacks by an army of one million—in spite of all this
the whole savage business does not really impress me.
Though the English may regard this rock as a lion in
repose, standing guard at the southernmost tip of Eu-
rope, eyes fixed on the wild hordes of Africa, I can
take it no more seriously than a dog on watch in a little
coal-yard. It reminds me even more of a ruminant, a
plain ordinary ox.
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