 Chapter 5 Part 2 of THE SEA, IT'S STIRRING STORY OF ADVENTURE, PARAL, AND HEROISM. VOLUME 1. THE SEA, IT'S STIRRING STORY OF ADVENTURE, PARAL, AND HEROISM. VOLUME 1. PARALS OF THE SAILOR'S LIFE CONTINUED. PART 2. IT IS, AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN, A POINT OF HONOR, FOR THE OFFICERS TO BE AMONG THE VERY LAST TO LEAVE, EXCEPT OF COURSE WHERE THEIR PRESENTS MIGHT BE NEEDED IN THE BOATS, AND THE CAPTAIN TO BE THE VERY LAST. Here the captain was among the first to scramble over the side, and his twelve-word barge only took off twenty-eight persons when it would have easily carried many more. A large barge took the colonial governor and his family and the governor's trunks. His boat wanted for nothing, and would have accommodated ten or more persons than it took. When several of the unfortunate crews swam off and begged to be taken in, they were kept off with drawn swords. The raft took the larger part of the soldiers, and had in all on board one-hundred and fifty persons. The captain coolly proposed to desert some sixty of the people still on board, and leave them to shift for themselves. But an officer who threatened to shoot him was the means of making him change his mind. And over forty were taken off in the long boat. Seventeen men, many of whom were helplessly intoxicated, were, however, left to their fate. On the morning of the fifth of July the signal was given to put to sea, and at first some of the boats towed the raft, which had no one to command it but a midshipman named Kudan, who having a painful wound on his leg was utterly useless. The other officers consulted their own personal safety only, and with a few exceptions this was the case with everyone else. When the lieutenant of the long boat, fearing that he could not keep the sea with eighty-eight men on board and no oars, entreated three of the other boats, one after the other, to relieve him of a part of his living cargo, they refused utterly. And the officer of the third, in his hurry to run away, loosed from the raft. This was the signal for a general desertion. The word was passed from one boat to another to leave them to their fate, and the captain had not the manliness to protest. The purser of the Medusa, with a few others, opposed such a dastardly proceeding, but in vain, and the raft without means of propulsion was abandoned. As it proved afterwards the boats which all reached the land safely sighted the coast the same evening, and the raft could have been towed to it in a day or two, or at all events sufficiently near for the purpose. The people on it could not at first believe in this treacherous desertion, and once and again buoyed themselves up with the hope that the boats would return or send relief. The lieutenant on the long boat seems to have been one of the few officers possessing any spark of humanity and manliness. He kept his own boat near the raft for a time in the hope that the others might be induced to return, but at length had to yield to the clamour of some eighty men on board with him, who insisted on his proceeding in search of land. The consternation and despair of those on the raft beggars description. The water was, even while the sea was calm, up to the knees of the larger part on board, while the horrors of a slow death from starvation and thirst, and the prospect of being washed off by the waves, should a storm arise, stared them in the face. Several barrels of flour had been placed on the raft at first, along with six barrels of wine and two small casks of water. When only fifty persons had got on it their weight sunk it so low in the water that the flour was thrown into the sea, and lost. When the raft quitted the ship with a hundred and fifty souls on her she was a foot to a foot and a half underwater, and the only food on board was a twenty-five pound bag of biscuit in a semi-pulpy condition which just afforded them one meager ration. Some on board, to keep up the courage of the remainder, promulgated the idea that the boats had merely made sail for the island of Argan, and that, having landed their crews, they would return. This, for the moment, appeased the indignation of the soldiers and others who had with frantic gesticulations been ringing their hands and tearing their hair. Night came on, and the wind freshened, the waves rolling over them and throwing many down with violence. The cries of the people were mingled with the roar of the waves, whilst heavy seas constantly lifted them off their legs, and threatened to wash them away. Thus, clinging desperately to the ropes, they struggled with death the whole night through. About seven the next morning the sea was again calm, when they found that twelve or more unfortunate men had, during the night, slipped between the interstices of the raft and perished. The effects of starvation were beginning to tell upon them. All their faculties were strangely impaired. Some fancied that they saw lighted signals in the distance, and answered them by firing off their pistols or by setting fire to small heaps of gunpowder. Others thought they saw ships or land when there was nothing in sight. The next day strong symptoms of mutiny broke out, the officers being utterly disregarded by the soldiers. The evening again brought bad weather. The people were now dashed about by the fury of the waves. There was no safety but in the center of the raft, where they packed themselves so close that many were nearly suffocated. The soldiers and sailors now considering their destruction inevitable resolved to drown the sense of their situation by drinking till they should lose their reason, nor could they be persuaded to forego their mad scheme. They rushed upon a cask of wine which was near the center, and making a hole in it drank so much that the fumes soon mounted to their heads in the empty condition in which they were, and they then resolved to rid themselves of their officers and afterwards to destroy the raft by cutting the lashings which kept it together. One of them commenced hacking away at the ropes with a boarding hatchet. The civil and military officers rushed on this ring-leader, and though he made a desperate resistance soon dispatched him. The people on the raft were now divided into two antagonistic parties, about twenty civil officers, and the better class of passengers on one side, and a hundred or more soldiers and workmen on the other. The mutineers, says the narrative, drew their swords and were going to make a general attack when the fall of another of their number struck such a seasonable terror into them that they retreated. But it was only to make another attempt at cutting the ropes. One of them, pretending to rest on the side rail of the raft, began to work when he was discovered, and a few moments afterwards with a soldier who attempted to defend him, was sent to his last account. This was followed by a general fight. An infantry captain was thrown into the sea by the soldiers but rescued by his friends. He was then seized a second time, and the revolters attempted to put out his eyes. A charge was made upon them, and many put to death. The wretches threw overboard the only woman on the raft, together with her husband. They were, however, saved, only to die miserably soon afterwards. A second repulse brought many of the mutineers to their senses, and temporarily awed the rest, some asking pardon on their knees. But at midnight the revolt again broke out, the soldiers attacking the party in the center of the raft with the fury of madmen, even biting their adversaries. They seized upon one of the lieutenants, mistaking him for one of the ship's officers who had deserted the raft, and he was rescued and protected afterwards with the greatest difficulty. They threw overboard Monsieur Coudan, an elderly man who was covered with wounds, received in opposing them, and a young boy of the party in whom he took an interest. Monsieur Coudan had the presence of mind both to support the child and to take hold of the raft, and his friends kept off the brutal soldiery with drawn swords until they were lifted on board again. The combat was so fierce, and the weather at night so bad, that on the return of day it was found that over sixty had perished off the raft. It is stated that the mutineers had thrown over the remaining water and two casks of wine. The indications in the narrative would not point to the latter conclusion, as the soldiers and workmen were constantly intoxicated, and many no doubt were washed off by the waves in that condition. A powerful temperance tracked might be written on the loss of the Medusa. On the morning of the fourth day after their departure from the frigate, the dead bodies of twelve of the company who had expired during the night were lying on the raft. This day a shoal of flying fish played round the raft, and a number of them got on board and were entangled in the spaces between the timbers. A small fire, lighted with flint and steel and gunpowder, was made inside a barrel, and the fish, half cooked, was greedily devoured. They did not stop here. The account briefly indicates that they ate parts of the flesh of their dead companions. Horror followed horror. A massacre succeeded their savage feast. Some Spaniards, Italians, and Negros among them, who had hitherto taken no part with the mutineers, now formed a plot to throw their superiors into the sea. A bag of money, which had been collected as a common fund and was hanging from a rude mast hastily extemporized, probably tempted them. The officer's party threw their ringleader overboard, while another of the conspirators, finding his villainy discovered, waited himself with a heavy boarding axe, and rushing to the fore part of the raft, plunged headlong into the sea, and was drowned. A desperate combat ensued, and the fatal raft was quickly piled with dead bodies. On the fifth morning there were only thirty alive. The remnant suffered severely, and one third of the number were unable to stand up or move about. The salt water and intense heat of the sun blistered their feet and legs, and gave intense pain. In the course of the seventh day two soldiers were discovered stealing the wine, and they were immediately pushed overboard. This day also, Leon, the poor little boy mentioned before, died from sheer starvation. The story has been so far nothing but a record of insubordination, murderous brutality, and utter selfishness. But the worst has yet to come. Let the survivors tell their own shameful and horrible story. There were now but twenty-seven left, and of these twelve, amongst them the woman, were so ill that there was no hope of their surviving even a few days. They were covered with wounds, and had almost entirely lost their reason. They might have lived long enough to reduce our stock to a very low ebb, but there was no hope that they could last more than a few days. To put them on short allowance was only hastening their death, while giving them a full ration was uselessly diminishing a quantity already too low. After an anxious consultation we came to the resolution of throwing them into the sea, and thus terminating at once their sufferings. This was a horrible and unjustifiable expedient, but who amongst us would have the cruelty to put it into execution? Three sailors and a soldier took it on themselves. We turned away our eyes from the shocking sight, trusting that, in thus endeavouring to prolong our own lives, we were shortening theirs but a few hours. This gave us the means of subsistence for six additional days. After this dreadful sacrifice, we cast our swords into the sea, reserving but one sabre for cutting wood or cordage as might be necessary. Was there ever such an example of demoniacal hypocrisy mingled with pretended humanity? One can hardly interest himself in the fate of the remaining fifteen, who if they were not all human devils must have carried to their dying days the brand of cane indelibly impressed on their memories. A few days passed, and the indications of a close approach to land became frequent. Meantime they were suffering from the intense heat and from excessive thirst. One more example of petty selfishness was afforded by an officer who had found a lemon which he resolved to keep entirely for himself until the ominous threats of the rest obliged him to share it. The wine which should have warmed their bodies and gladdened their hearts produced on their weakened frames the worst effects of intoxication. Five of the number resolved and were barely persuaded not to commit suicide so maddened were they by their potations. Perhaps the sight of the sharks, which now came boldly up to the edges of the raft, had something to do with sobering them, for they decided to live. Three days now passed in intolerable torments. They had become so careless of life that they bathed even in sight of the sharks. Others were not afraid to place themselves naked upon the four part of the raft, which was then entirely under water. And though it was exceedingly dangerous it had the effect of taking away their thirst. They now attempted to construct a boat of planks and spars. When completed a sailor went upon it, when it immediately upset, and the design of reaching land by this means was abandoned. On the morning of the seventeenth of July the sun shone brightly and the sky was cloudless. Just as they were receiving their ration of wine one of the infantry officers discerned the top masts of a vessel near the horizon. During their efforts they raised a man to the top of the mast who waved constantly a number of handkerchiefs tied together. After two hours of painful suspense the vessel, a brig, disappeared and they once more resigned themselves to despair. Deciding that they must leave some record of their fate they agreed to carve their names with some account of their disaster on a plank in the hope that it might eventually reach their government and families. But they were to be saved. The brig reappeared and bore down for them. She proved to be a vessel which had been dispatched by the Governor of Senegal for the purpose of rescuing any survivors. Though considering the raft had now been seventeen days afloat there was little expectation that any of its hundred and fifty passengers still lived. The wounded and blistered limbs, sunken eyes and emaciated frames of the remnant, told its own tale on board. And yet with due order and discipline, presence of mind and united helpfulness, the ship with every soul who had sailed on her might have been saved, and a fearful story of cruelty, murder and cannibalism spared to us. The modern Medusa has been branded with a name of infamy worse than that of the famous classical monster after which she was named. The celebrated picture by Géricault in the Louvre at Paris vividly depicts the horrors of the scene. The wreck of the Medusa has very commonly been compared and contrasted with that of the Alceste, an English frigate which was wrecked the same year. Lord Amherst was returning from China in this vessel after fulfilling his mission to the court of P. King, instituted at the instance of the East India Company who had complained to government of the impediments thrown in the way of their trade by the Chinese. His secretary and suite were with him, and so there was some resemblance to the case of the Medusa which had a colonial governor and his staff on board. The commander of the Alceste was Captain afterwards Sir Murray Maxwell, a true gentleman and a bluff hearty sailor. Having touched at Manila they were passing through the straits of Gaspar when the ship suddenly struck on a reef of sunken rocks, and it became evident that she must inevitably and speedily break up. The most perfect discipline prevailed, and the first efforts of the captain were naturally directed to saving the ambassador and his subordinates. The island of Palo Leite was a few miles off, and although its coast at this part was a salt marsh with mangrove trees growing out in the water so thick and entangled that it almost prevented them landing, every soul was got off safely. Good feeling and sensible councils prevailed. At first there was no fresh water to be obtained. It was water, water everywhere yet not a drop to drink. In a short time, however, they dug a deep well and soon reached plenty. Then the melees attacked and surrounded them. At first a few score, at last six or seven hundred strong. Things looked black, but they erected a stockade, made rude pikes by sticking their knives, dirks and small swords on the end of poles, and although they had landed with just seventy-five ball cartridges, their stock soon grew to fifteen hundred. How? Why the sailors set to with a will, and made their own, the balls being represented by their jacket buttons and pieces of the glass of broken bottles. Of loose powder they had fortunately a sufficient quantity. The melees set the wreck on fire, the men waited till it had burned low, and then drove them off, and went and secured such of the stores as could now be reached, or which had floated off. The natives were gathering thick. Murray made his sailors a speech in true, hearty style, and their wild huzzas were taken by the melees for war-whoops, the latter soon weakened, as they say in America. From the highest officer to the merest boy, all behaved like calm, resolute and sensible Britons, and every soul was saved. Lord Amherst, who had gone on to Batavia, sent a vessel for them, on board which Maxwell was the last to embark. At the time of the wreck their condition was infinitely worse than that of the Medusa, but how completely different the sequel. The story is really a pleasant one, displaying as it does the happy results of both good discipline and mutual good feeling in the midst of danger. Neil Desperandum was evidently the motto of that crew, and their philosophy was rewarded. The lessons of the past and present in regard to our great ships have taught us that disaster is not confined to iron clads, nor victory to wooden walls, neither is good discipline dead, nor the race of true hearted tar's extinct. Men of iron will soon be the worthy successors of hearts of oak. Having glanced at the causes which led to the iron clad movement, and noted certain salient points in its history, let us now for a while discuss the iron clad herself. It has been remarked, as a matter of reproach to the administrators and builders of the British iron clad navy, that the vessels composing it are not sufficiently uniform in design, power, and speed. Mr. Reed, however, tells us that the marine modern cuirassée of France is still more distinguished by the different types and forms of the vessels, and that ours, by comparison, wears quite a tiresome appearance of sameness, while again Russia has iron clads even more diversified than those of France. The objection is perhaps hardly a fair one, as the exigencies of the navy are many and varied. We might have to fight a first-class power, or several first-class powers, where all our strength would have to be put forth. Some second-class power might require chastising where vessels of a secondary class might suffice, while almost any vessel of the navy would be efficient in the case of wars with native tribes, as, for example, the Maoris of New Zealand or the Indians of the coasts of Northwest America. In a great naval conflict, provided the vessels of our fleet steamed pretty evenly as regards speed, there would be an advantage in variety, for it might rather puzzle and worry the enemy, who would not know what next would appear or what new form turn up. Mr. Reed puts the matter in a nutshell. Although it must be seen that among first-class powers with first-class fleets the argument cuts both ways. In the old days, says he, when actions had to be fought under sail, and when ships of a class were in the main alike, the limits within which the arts, the resources, and the audacities of the navy were restricted were really very narrow, and yet how brilliant were its achievements. I cannot but believe that if the English iron clad fleet were now to be engaged in a general action within enemy's fleet, the very variety of our ships, those very improvements which have occasioned that variety, would be at once the cause of the greatest possible embarrassment to the enemy, and the means of the most vigorous and diversified attack upon the hostile fleet. This is peculiarly true of all those varieties which result from increase in handiness, in foul fire, in height of port, and so forth. And unless I have misread our naval history and misappreciate the character of our naval officers of the present day, the nation will, in the day of trial, obtain the full benefit of these advantages. It needs no argument to convince the reader that the aim of a naval architect should be to combine in the best manner available strength and lightness. The dimensions and outside form of the ship, in great part, determine her displacement. And her capacity to carry weights depends largely on the actual weight of her own hull, while the room within partly depends on the thinness or thickness of her walls. Now, we have seen that in wooden ships the hull weighs more than in iron ships of equal size, and it will be apparent that what is gained in the latter case can be applied to carrying so much the more iron armor. Hence, distinguished authorities do not believe in the wood-built ship carrying heavy armor, nearly so much as in the iron clad, iron built ship. The durability and strength are greater. The authority of such a man as Mr. J. Scott Russell, the eminent shipbuilder, will be conclusive. In a pamphlet published in 1862, he noted the following ten points. One, that iron steam ships of war may be built as strong as wooden ships of greater weight and stronger than wooden ships of equal weight. Two, that iron ships of equal strength can go on less draft of water than wooden ships. Three, that iron ships can carry much heavier weights than wooden ships. Hence, they can carry heavier armor. Four, that they are more durable. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, that they are safer against the sea, against fire, explosive shots, red hot shots, molten metal. And ten, that they can be made impregnable even against solid shot. The last point, alas, is one which Mr. Scott Russell himself would hardly insist upon today. When he wrote his pamphlet, five or six inches of armor with a wood backing, withstood anything that could be fired against it. When the armor of the warrior, our first real iron clad had to be tested, a target 20 feet by 10 feet surface composed of four and a half inch iron and 18 inches of teak backing, the exact counterpart of a slice out of the ship's side, was employed. The shot from 68 pounders, the same as composed her original armament, fired at 200 yards, only made small dents in the target and rebounded. 200 pounders had no more effect. The shot flew off in ragged splinters. The iron plates became almost red hot under the tremendous strokes, and rung like a huge gong. But that was all. Now we have six and a half ton guns that would pierce her side at 500 yards, 12 ton guns that would put a hole through her armor at over a mile, and 25 ton guns that would probably penetrate the armor of any iron clad, whatever. Why, some of the ships themselves are now carrying 30 ton guns. It is needless to go on and speak of monster 81 and 100 ton guns after recording these facts. But their consideration explains why the thickness of armor has kept on increasing, albeit it could not possibly do so in an equal ratio. Mr. Reed tells us, this strange contest between attack and defense, however wasteful, however melancholy, must still go on. Mr. W. G. Armstrong, inventor of the famous guns, on the other hand, says, in my opinion armor should be wholly abandoned for the defense of the guns, and except to a very limited extent I doubt the expediency of using it even for the security of the ship. Where armor can be applied for deflecting projectiles, as at the bow of a ship it would afford great protection without requiring to be very heavy. Sir William recommends very swift iron vessels divided into numerous compartments with boilers and machinery below the water line, and only very partially protected by armor, considering that victory in the contest as regards strength is entirely on the side of the artillery. Sir Joseph Whitworth, also an inventor of great guns, offered practically to make guns to penetrate any thickness of armor. The bewildered parliamentary committee says mournfully in its report, a perfect ship of war is a desideratum which has never yet been attained, and is now farther than ever removed from our reach. While Mr. Reed again cuts the Gordian knot by professing his belief that, in the end, guns will themselves be superseded as a means of attack, and the ship itself, viewed as a steam projectile, possessing all the force of the most powerful shot, combined with the power of striking in various directions, will be deemed the most formidable weapon of attack that man's ingenuity has devised. The contest between professed ship and gun makers would be amusing, but for the serious side, the immense expense, and the important interests involved. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. In this and following chapters, we will ask the reader to accompany us in imagination round the world, on board a ship of the Royal Navy visiting en route the principal British naval stations and possessions, and a few of those friendly foreign ports which, as on the Pacific Station, stand in lieu of them. We cannot do better than commence with the Mediterranean, to which the young sailor will, in all probability, be sent for a cruise after he has been thoroughly broken in to the mysteries of life on board ship, and where he has an opportunity of visiting many ports of ancient renown and of great historical interest. The modern title applied to the sea between the lands is not that of the ancients, nor indeed that of some peoples now. The Greeks had no special name for it. Herodotus calls it this sea, and Strabo the sea within the columns, that is, within Calpe and Apila, the fabled pillars of Hercules, today represented by Gibraltar and Suta. The Romans called it variously Mare internum and Mare innostrum, while the Arabians termed it bar room, the Roman sea. The modern Greeks call it aspre thalassa, the white sea. It might as appropriately be called blue, that being its general color, or green, as in the Adriatic, or purple, as at its eastern end. But they use it to distinguish it from the sea of storms, the black sea. The Straits, the gate of the narrow passage, as the Arabians poetically describe it, or the gut, as it is termed by our prosaic sailors and pilots, is the narrow portal to a great inland sea with an area of 800,000 miles, whose shores are as varied in the character as other peoples who own them. The Mediterranean is saltier than the ocean, in spite of the great rivers which enter it. The Rhone, Poe, Ebro, and Nile, and the innumerable smaller streams and torrents, it has other physical and special characteristics to be hereafter considered. The political and social events which have been mingled with its history are interwoven with those of almost every people on the face of the globe. We shall see how much our own has been shaped and involved. It was with the memory of the glorious deeds of British seamen and soldiers that Browning wrote when sailing through the Straits. Nobly, nobly, Cape St. Vincent to the Northwest died away. Sunset ran one glorious blood red reeking into Cadiz Bay, bluish mid-burning water full in face Trafalgar lay, in the dimmest northeast distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray. Here and here did England help me. How can I help England, say? Whoso turns as I, this evening, turns to God to praise and pray, while Joves' planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. And the poet is almost literally correct in his description, for within sight, as we enter the Straits of Gibraltar, are the localities of innumerable sea and landfights dating from earliest days. That grand old rock, what has it not witnessed since the first timid mariner crept out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, the Mare Tenebrosum, the sea of darkness of the ancients? Romans of old fought Carthaginian galleys in its bay. The conquering Moors held it uninterruptedly for six hundred years, and in all for over seven centuries. Spain owned it close on two and a half centuries, and England has dared the world to take it since 1704, 173 years ago. It's very armorial bearings, which we have adopted from those given by Henry of Castile and Leon, are suggestive of its position and value, a castle on a rock with a key pendant, the key to the Mediterranean. The king of Spain still includes Calpe, Gibraltar, in his dominions, and natives of the place, Ford tells us in his handbook to Spain, are entitled to the rights and privileges of Spanish birth. It has, in days gone by, given great offense to French writers, who spoke of l'embrageur's presence with displeasure. Sometimes, says Ford, there is too great a luxe de canon in this fortress ornée, then the gardens destroy wild nature. In short, they abuse the red jackets, guns, nursery maids, and even the monkeys. The present colony of apes are the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of the rock. They have held it through all vicissitudes. The Moorish writers were ever enthusiastic over it. With them, it was the shining mountain, the mountain of victory. The mountain of Tarik, Gibraltar, says a Grenadian poet, is like a beacon spreading its rays over the sea and rising far above the neighboring mountains. One might fancy that its face almost reaches the sky and that its eyes are watching the stars in the celestial track. An Arabian writer well describes its position. The waters surrounding Gibraltar on almost every side so as to make it look like a watchtower in the midst of the sea. The fame of the last great siege already briefly described in these pages has so completely overshadowed the general history of the rock that it will surprise many to learn that it has undergone no less than 14 sieges. The Moors, after successfully invading Spain, first fortified it in 711 and held uninterrupted possession until 1309 when Ferdinand IV besieged and took it. The Spaniards only held it 25 years when it reverted to the Moors who kept it till 1462. Thus the Moors held it in all about seven centuries and a quarter from the making a castle on the rock to the last sorrowful departure of the remnants of the nation. It has been said that Gibraltar was the landing place of the vigorous Moorish race and that it was the point of departure on which their footsteps lingered last. In short, it was the European of which Suta stands as the African fellow. By these means myriads of Muslims passed into Spain and with them much for which the Spaniards are wrongfully unthankful. It is said that when the Moors left their houses in Grenada, which they did with, so to speak, everything standing, many families took with them the great wooden keys of their mansions, so confident were they of returning home again when the keys should open the locks and the houses be joyful in you. It was not to be as thus longed for, but many families in Barbary still keep the keys of these long ago deserted and destroyed mansions. And now we must mention an incident of its history recorded in the Norwegian Chronicles of the Kings concerning Sigurd the Crusader, the Pilgrim. After battling his way from the north with 60 long ships, King Sigurd proceeded on his voyage to the Holy Land and came to Neorpha Sound, Gibraltar Straits, and in the sound he was met by a large Viking force, a squadron of warships, and the king gave them battle, and this was his fifth engagement with the heathens since the time he came from Norway. So says Haldor Squaldre, he moistened your dry swords with blood as through Neorpha Sound ye stood, the screaming raven got a feast as ye sailed onwards to the east. Hence he went along Sarkland or Saracen's land, Mauritania, where he attacked a strong party who had their fortress in a cave with a wall before it in the face of a precipice, a place which was difficult to come at and where the holders, who are said to have been freebooters, defied and ridiculed the northmen, spreading their valuables on top of the wall in their sight. Sigurd was equal to the occasion in craft as in force, for he had his ships boats drawn up the hill, filled them with archers and slingers, and lowered them before the mouth of the cavern, so that they were able to keep back the defenders long enough to allow the main body of the northmen to ascend from the foot of the cliff and break down the wall. This done Sigurd caused large trees to be brought to the mouth of the cave and roasted the miserable wretches within. Further fights and he at last reached Jerusalem, where he was honorably received by Baldwin, whom he assisted with his ships at the siege of Sidon. Sigurd also visited Constantinople, where the emperor Alexius offered him his choice, either to receive six skiff pound, or about a ton of gold, or see the great games of the hippodrome. The northmen wisely chose the latter, the cost of which was said to be equal to the value of the gold offered. Sigurd presented his ships to the emperor, and their splendid prowls were hung up in the church of St. Peter at Constantinople. In the year 1319, Pedro Infante of Castile fought the Moors at Grenada. The latter were the victors, and their spoils were enormous, consisting in part of 4,300 weights of gold, 140 100 weights of silver, with armor, arms, and horses in abundance. 50,000 Castilians were slain, and among the captives were the wife and children of the Infante. Gibraltar then in the hands of Spain, with Tarifa and 18 castles of the district, were offered, and refused for her ransom. The body of the Infante himself was stripped of its skin, and stuffed and hung over the gate of Grenada. The third siege occurred in the reign of Muhammad IV, when the Spanish held the rock. The governor at that time, Vasco Pérez de Mera, was an avaricious and dishonest man who embezzled the dues and other resources of the place and neglected his charge. During the siege, a grain ship fell on shore, and its cargo would have enabled him to hold out a long time. Instead of feeding his soldiers who were reduced to eating leather, he gave and sold it to his prisoners, with the expectation of either getting heavy ransoms for them, or if he should have to surrender, of making better terms for himself. It availed him nothing, for he had to capitulate, and then not daring to face his sovereign, Alfonso XI, he had to flee to Africa, where he ended his days. Alfonso besieged it twice. The first time the Grenadians induced him to abandon it, promising a heavy ransom. The next time he commenced by reducing the neighboring town of Algisiris, which was defended with great energy. When the Spaniards brought forth their wheeled towers of wood covered with rawhides, the Moors discharged cannons loaded with red-hot balls. This is noteworthy, for cannon was not used by the English till three years after at the Battle of Kreshi, while it is the first recorded instance of red-hot shot being used at all. It is further deserving of notice that the very means employed at Algisiris were afterwards so successfully used at the Great Siege. After taking Algisiris, Alfonso blockaded Gibraltar when the plague broke out in his camp. He died from it, and the rock remained untaken. This was the epic of one of those great pestilences which ravaged Europe. 50,000 souls perished in London in 1348 from its effects. Florence lost two-thirds of her population, and Saragossa 300 died daily. The sixth attack on the part of the King of Fez was unsuccessful, as was that in 1436, when it was besieged by a wealthy noble, one of the Degousmans. His forces were allowed to land in numbers on a narrow beach below the fortress, where they were soon exposed to the rising of the tide and the missiles of the besieged. Degousmans was drowned, and his body, picked up by the Moors, hung out for 26 years from the battlements as a warning to ambitious nobles. At the eighth siege in 1462, Gibraltar passed finally into Christian hands. The garrison was weak, and the Spaniards gained an easy victory. When Henry IV learned of its capture, he rejoiced greatly, and took immediate care to proclaim it a thief of the throne, adding to the royal titles that of Lord of Gibraltar. The armorial distinctions still borne by Gibraltar were first granted by him. The ninth siege on the part of a Degousmans was successful, and it for a time passed into the hands of a noble who had vast possessions and fisheries in the neighborhood. Strange to say, such were the troubles of Spain at the time that Henry the before named, who was known as the weak, two years after confirmed the title to the rock to the son of the very man who had been constantly in arms against him. But after the civil wars and at the advent of Ferdinand and Isabella, there was a decided change. Isabella, acting doubtless under the advice of her astute husband, whose entire policy was opposed to such a grandizement on the part of a subject, tried to induce the Duke to surrender it, offering in exchange the city of Utrera. Ayala tells us that he utterly refused. His great estates were protected by it, and he made it a kind of central depot for his profitable tiny fisheries. He died in 1492, and the third Duke applied to Isabella for a renewal on his grant and privileges. She promised all, but insisted that the rock and fortress must revert to the crown. But it was not till nine years afterwards that Isabella succeeded in compelling or inducing the Duke to surrender it formally. Dying in 1504, the Queen testified her wishes as follows. It is my will and desire, in so much as the city of Gibraltar has been surrendered to the royal crown, and been inserted among its titles, that it shall forever so remain. Two years after her death, Juan de Guzmán tried to retake it and blockaded it for four months, at the end of which time he abandoned the siege and had to make reparation to those whose property had been injured. This is the only bloodless one among the 14 sieges. In 1540, a dash was made at the town, and even at a part of the fortress by Corsairs. They plundered the neighborhood, burned a chapel and hermitage, and dictated terms in the most high-handed way, that all the Turkish prisoners should be released, and that their galleys should be allowed to take water at the Gibraltar Wells. They were afterwards severely chastised by a Spanish fleet. In the wars between the Dutch and Spaniards, a naval action occurred in the year 1607 in the port of Gibraltar, which can hardly be omitted in its history. The great Sully has described it graphically when speaking of the efforts of the Dutch to secure the alliances of his master Henry IV of France in their wars against Philip of Spain. He says, Alvarez de Vila, the Spanish admiral, was ordered to cruise near the Straits of Gibraltar to hinder the Dutch from entering the Mediterranean and to deprive them of the trade of the Adriatic. The Dutch, to whom this was a most sensible mortification, gave the command of ten or twelve vessels to one of their ablest seamen named Heemskirk with the title of Vice Admiral, and ordered him to go and reconnoiter this fleet and attack it. de Vila, though nearly twice as strong as his enemy, yet provided a reinforcement of 26 great ships, some of which were of a thousand tons burden, and augmented the number of his troops to 3,500 men. With this accession of strength, he thought himself so secure a victory that he brought 150 gentlemen along with him only to be witnesses of it. However, instead of standing out to see as he ought to have done, he posted himself under the town and castle of Gibraltar that he might not be obliged to fight but when he thought proper. Heemskirk, who had taken none of these precautions, no sooner perceived that his enemy seemed to fear him than he advanced to attack him, and immediately began the most furious battle that was ever fought in the memory of man. It lasted eight whole hours. The Dutch vice admiral at the beginning attacked the vessel in which the Spanish admiral was, grappled with, and was ready to board her. A cannonball, which wounded him in the thigh soon after the fight began, left him only an hour's life, during which, until within a moment of his death, he continued to give orders as if he felt no pain. When he found himself ready to expire, he delivered his sword to his lieutenant, obliging him and all that were with him to bind themselves by an oath either to conquer or die. The lieutenant caused the same oath to be taken by the people of all the other vessels, when nothing was heard by the general cry of victory or death. At length, the Dutch were victorious. They lost only two vessels and about 250 men. The Spaniards lost 16 ships. Three were consumed by fire and the others, among which was the admiral's ship, ran aground. Davila, with 35 captains, 50 of his volunteers, and 2,800 soldiers, lost their lives in the fight. A memorable action which was not only the source of tears and affliction to many widows and private persons, but filled all Spain with horror. England won Gibraltar during the war of the succession, when she was allied with Austria and Holland against Spain and France. The war had dragged on with varied results till 1704 when it was determined to attack Spain at home with the aid of the Portuguese. The commanders of the allied fleets and troops, i.e. the land grave George of Hesse-Darmstadt, Sir George Rook, Admiral Bing, Sir Cloudsley Shovel, Admiral Leek, and the three Dutch admirals, determined to attack Gibraltar, believed to be weak in forces and stores. On the 21st of July, 1704, the fleet, which consisted of 45 ships, 6 frigates, besides fire and bombships, came to an anchor off the rock and landed 5,000 men so as to at once cut off the supplies of the garrison. The commanders of the allied forces sent, on the morning after their arrival, a demand for the surrender of Gibraltar to the Archduke Charles, whose claims as rightful king of Spain they were supporting. The little garrison answered valiantly, and had their brave governor, the Marquis Diego de Salinas, been properly backed, the fortress might have been Spain's today. The opening of the contest was signalized by the burning of a French privateer. Followed by a furious cannonading, the new and old moles were speedily silenced and a large number of marines landed. The contest was quite unequal, and the besieged soon offered to capitulate with the honors of war, the right of retaining their property, and six days' provisions. The garrison had three days allowed for its departure, and those as well as the inhabitants of the rock who chose might remain, with full civil and religious rights. Thus, in three days' time the famous fortress fell into the hands of the allies, and possession was taken in the name of Charles III. Sir George Rook, however, overrode this and pulled down the standard of Charles, setting up in its stead that of England. A garrison of 1800 English seamen was landed. The English were alone of the parties then present, competent to hold it, and at the Peace of Utrecht, 1711, it was formally seated absolutely with all manner of right forever, without exemption or impediment to Great Britain. The Spaniards departed from the fortress they had valiantly defended, the majority remaining at St. Rook. Like some of the moors whom they had dispossessed, their descendants are said to preserve until this day the records and family documents which form the basis of claims upon property on that rock, which, for more than a century and a half, has known other masters. Rook went absolutely unrewarded. He was persistently ignored by the government of the day, and being a man of moderate fortune, consulted his own dignity, and retired to his country seat. The same year, 1704, the Spanish again attempted, with the aid of France, to take Gibraltar. England had only three months to strengthen and repair the fortifications, and the force brought against the rock was by no means contemptible, including as it did a fleet of two and twenty Frenchmen of war. Sucker arrived. Sir John Leake succeeded in driving four of the enemy's ships ashore. An attempt to escalate the fortress was made under the guidance of a native goat herd. He, with a company of men, succeeded in reaching the signal station, where a hard fight occurred, and our troops killed or disabled 160 men and took the remnant prisoners. Two sallies were made from the rock with great effect, while an attempt made by the enemy to enter through a narrow breach resulted in a sacrifice of 200 lives. A French fleet under Pointe arrived. The English admiral captured three and destroyed one of them, that of Pointe himself. To make a six-month story short, the assailants lost 10,000 men and then had to raise the siege. Although on several occasions our rulers have, since the piece of Utrecht proposed to seed or exchange the fortress, the spirit of the people would not permit it, and there can be no doubt whatever that our right to Gibraltar is not merely that of possession, nine points of the law, but session rung from a people unable to hold it, and that, in war, is fair. Twenty years later, Spain again attempted to ring it from us. Mr. Stan Hope, then our representative at Madrid, was told by Queen Isabella, either relinquish Gibraltar or your trade with the Indies. We still hold Gibraltar, and our trade with the Indies is generally regarded as a tolerably good one. In December 1726, peace or war was made at the alternative regarding the session. Another bombardment followed. An officer present said that it was so severe that we seemed to live in flames. Negotiations for peace followed at no great distance of time, and the Spaniards suddenly drew off from the attack. Various offers, never consummated, were made for an exchange. Pitt proposed to seed it in exchange for Menorca, Spain, to assist in recovering it from the French. At another time, Oran, a third-class port on the Mediterranean shores of Africa, was offered an exchange, and Mr. Fitz Herbert, our diplomatist, was told that the king of Spain was determined never to put a period to the present war if we did not agree to the terms, and again that Oran ought to be accepted with gratitude. The tone of Spain altered very considerably a short time afterwards, when the news arrived of the destruction of the floating batteries and the failure of the grand attack. This was, at the last, the great siege of history. A few additional details may be permitted before we pass to other subjects. The actual siege occupied three years and seven months, and for one year and nine months, the bombardment went on without cessation. The actual losses on the part of the enemy can hardly be estimated. 1,473 were killed, wounded, or missing on the floating batteries alone. But for brave Curtis, who took a pinnace to the rescue of the poor wretches on the batteries, then in flames, and the ammunition of which was exploding every minute, more than 350 fresh victims must have gone to their last account. His boat was engulfed amid the falling ruins. A large piece of timber fell through its flooring, killing the coxswain and wounding others. The sailors stuffed their jackets into the leak, and succeeded in saving the lives of 357 of their late enemies. For many days, consecutively, they had been peppering us at the rate of 6,500 shots and over 2,000 shells each 24 hours. With the destruction of the floating batteries, the siege of Spain was virtually concluded. The contest was at an end, and the united strength of two ambitious and powerful nations had been humbled by a straightened garrison of 6,000 effective men. Our losses were comparatively small, though thrice the troops were on the verge of famine. At the period of the Great Siege, the rock mounted only 100 guns. Now it has 1,000, many of them of great caliber. In France, victory for the Allies was regarded as such a foregone conclusion that a drama illustrative of the destruction of Gibraltar by the floating batteries was acted nightly to applauding thousands. The siege has, we believe, been a favorite subject at the minor English theaters many a time since, but it need not be stated that the views taken of the result were widely different to those popular at that time in Paris. Gibraltar has had an eventful history even since the Great Siege. In 1804, a terrible epidemic swept the rock. 5,733 out of a population of 15,000 died in a few weeks. The climate is warm and pleasant, but it is not considered the most healthy of localities even now. And on the 28th of October, 1805, the victory in tow of the Neptune entered the bay with the body of Nelson on board. The fatal shot had done its work, only 11 days before he had written to General Fox one of his happy, pleasant letters. The rock itself is a compact limestone, a form of gray, dense marble varied by beds of red sandstone. It abounds in caves and fissures, and advantage has been taken of these facts to bore galleries, the most celebrated of which are St. Michael's and Martin's, the former 1,100 feet above the sea. Tradition makes it a barren rock, but the botanists tell us differently. There are 456 species of indigenous flowering plants, besides many which have been introduced. The advantages of its natural position have been everywhere utilized. It bristles with batteries, many of which can hardly be seen. Captain Sire tells us that every spot where a gun could be brought to bear on an enemy has one. Wandering, says he, through the geranium-edged paths on the hillside, or clambering up the rugged cliffs to the eastward, one stumbles unexpectedly upon a gun of the heaviest metal lodged in a secluded nook, with its ammunition, round shot, canister, and case piled around it, ready at any instant. The shrubs and flowers that grow on the cultivated places and are preserved from injury with so much solitude are often but the masks of guns, which lie crouched beneath the leaves ready for the port fire. Everywhere, all stands ready for defense. War and peace are strangely mingled. Gibraltar has one of the finest colonial libraries in the world, founded by the celebrated Colonel Drinkwater, whose account of the Great Siege is still the standard authority. The town possesses some advantages, but as 15,000 souls out of a population of about double that number are crowded into one square mile, it is not altogether a healthy place, albeit much improved of late years. Rents are exorbitant, but ordinary living and bad liquors are cheap. It is by no means the best place in the world for Jack ashore, for, as Shakespeare tells us, sailors are but men, and there be land rats and water rats, who live on their weaknesses. The town has a very mongrel population of all shades of color and character. Alas, the monkeys, who were the first inhabitants of the rock, tailless Barbary apes are now becoming scarce. Many a poor Jocko has fallen from the enemy's shot, killed in battles which he, at least, never provoked. The scenery of the Straits, which we are now about to enter, is fresh and pleasant, and as we commenced with an extract from one well-known poet, we may be allowed to finish with that of another, which, if more hack need, is still expressive and beautiful. Byron's well-known lines will recur to many of our readers. Through Calpe Straits survey the steepy shore, Europe and Africa on each other gaze, lands of the dark-eyed Maid and Dusky Moor, alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze. How softly on the Spanish shore she plays, disclosing rock and slope and forest brown, distinct though darkening with her waning phase. In the distance gleams Mons Abila, the apes hill of sailors, a term which could have been for a very long time as appropriately given to Gibraltar. It is the other sentinel of the Straits, while Ceuta, the strong fortress built on its flanks, is held by Spain on Moorish soil, just as we hold the rock of rocks on theirs. Its name is probably a corruption of Septem, Seven, from the number of hills on which it is built. It is today a military prison, there usually being held two or three thousand convicts, while both convicts and fortress are guarded by a strong garrison of 3,500 men. These in their turn were only a few years ago guarded by the jealous Moors, who shot both guards and prisoners if they dared to emerge in the neighborhood. There is, besides a town, as at Gibraltar, with over fifteen thousand inhabitants, and at the present day holiday excursions are commonly made across the Straits in strong little steamers or other craft. The tide runs into the Straits from the Atlantic at the rate of four or more knots per hour, and yet all this water with that of the innumerable streams and rivers which fall into the Mediterranean scarcely suffice to raise a perceptible tide. What becomes of all this water is there a hole in the earth through which it runs off? Hardly. Evaporation is probably the true secret of its disappearance, and that this is the reason is proved by the greater saltiness of the Mediterranean as compared with the Atlantic. In Sailor's parlance, going aloft has a number of meanings. He climbs the slippery shrouds to go aloft, and when at last, like poor Tom Bowling, he lies a sheer hulk, and, his bodies under hatches, his soul has gone aloft. Going aloft in the Mediterranean has a very different meaning. It signifies passing upwards and eastwards from the Straits of Gibraltar. We are now going aloft to Malta, a British possession hardly second to that of the famed rock itself. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Part 1 of The Sea Its stirring story of adventure, peril, and heroism Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Sea Its stirring story of adventure, peril, and heroism Volume 1 by Frederick Wimper Chapter 7 Round the World on a Man of War continued Malta and the Suez Canal Part 1 Approaching Malta, we must not in silence pass Calypso's Isle. Warburton describes it in his delightful work on the east, a classic on the Mediterranean, as a little paradise with all the beauties of a continent in miniature, little mountains with craggy summits, little valleys with cascades and rivers, lany meadows and dark woods, trim gardens and tangled vineyards, all within a circuit of five or six miles. One or two uninhabited little islands that seem to have strayed from the continent and lost their way dot the sea between the pleasant penal settlement and gozo, which is also a claimant for the doubtful honor of Calypso's Isle. Narrow straits separated from the rock, the inhabited quarry called Malta, of which Valetta is the port. The capital is a cross between a Spanish and an Eastern town. Most of its streets are flights of steps. Although the climate is delightful, it is extremely warm and there is usually a glare of heat about the place, owing to its rocky nature and limited amount of tree shade. All Malta, writes Talaq, seems to be light yellow, light yellow rocks, light yellow fortifications, light yellow stone walls, light yellow flat top houses, light yellow palaces, light yellow roads and streets. Stones and stone walls are the chief and conspicuous objects in the Maltese landscape and for good reason, for the very limited soil is propped up and kept in bounds by them on the hills. With the scanty depth of earth, the vegetation between the said stone walls is wonderful. The green bushy carob and prickly cactus are to be seen, but in the immediate neighborhood of Malta, few trees, only an occasional and solitary palm. Overall, the bright blue sky, around the deep blue sea. You must not say anything to a Maltese against it, with him it is Flor del Mondo, the flower of the world. The poorest natives live in capital stone houses, many of them with facades and fronts, which would be considered ornamental in an English town. The terraced roofs make up to its cooped inhabitants the space lost by building. There are five or six hundred promenatable roofs in the city. Taliq says that the island generally is the abode of industry and contentment. Expenses are high, except as regards the purchase of fruits, including the famed blood mandolin, sometimes called quite as correctly mandarin oranges, and Japan medlars and Marsala wine from Sicily. The natives live simply as a rule, but the officers and foreign residents commonly do not. And it is true here, as Ford says of the military gentleman at Gibraltar, that their faces often look somewhat redder than their jackets in consequence. As in India, many unwisely adopt the high living of their class, in a climate where a cool and temperate diet is indispensable. The four great characteristics of Malta are soldiers, priests, goats, and bells. The latter not being confined to the necks of the goats, but jangling at all hours from the many church towers. The goats pervade everywhere. There is scarcely any cow's milk to be obtained in Malta. They may often be seen with sheep, as in the patriarchal days of Yor following their owners in accordance with the pastoral allusions of the Bible. What nature commenced in Valeta, art has finished. It has a land locked harbor, really several running into each other, surrounded by high fortified walls above which rise houses and other fortifications above them. There are galleries in the rock following the Gibraltar president and batteries bristling with guns, barracks, magazines, large docks, foundry, lathe rooms, and a bakery for the use of the united service. To every visitor the gorgeous church of San Giovanni with its vaulted roof of gilded arabesque, its crimson hangings and carved pulpits is a great object of interest. Its floor resembles one grand escuchon, a mosaic of nightly tombs recalling days when Malta was a harbor of saintly refuge and princely hospitality for crusaders and pilgrims of the cross. An inner chapel is guarded by massive silver rails, saved from the French by the cunning of a priest who, on their approach, painted them wood color and their real nature was never suspected. But amid all the splendor of the venerable pile its proudest possession today is a bunch of old rusty keys. The keys of roads the keys of the nights of Saint John. What history is not locked up with those keys? There is hardly a country in Europe, Asia or Northern Africa the history of which has not been more or less entangled with that of these nights of the cross who, driven by their conquering crescent from Jerusalem, took refuge successively in Cyprus, Rhodes, Kandia, Messina and finally Malta. The island had an important place in history and commerce long era that period. The Phoenicians held its 700 years the Greeks a century and a half. The Romans retained it for as long a period as the Phoenicians and after being ravaged by Goths and Vandals it was for three and a half centuries an appenage of the crown of Byzantium. Next came the Arabs who were succeeded by the Normans and soon after it had become a German possession Charles the Fifth presented it to the homeless knights. In the middle of the 11th century some merchants of the then flourishing commercial city of Amalfi obtained permission to erect three hostilities or hospitals in the holy city for the relief of poor and invalided pilgrims. On the taking of Jerusalem by the crusaders the position and prospects of the hospitals of Saint John became greatly improved. The organization became a recognized religious order vowing poverty obedience and chastity. Its members were distinguished by a white cross four double points worn on a black robe of the form commonly to be met in the Maltese filigree jewelry of today often to be noted in our west end and other shops. Branch hospitals spread all over Europe with the same admirable objects and the order received constant acquisitions of property. Under the guidance of Raymond Dupree military service was added to the other vows and the monks became the white cross knights. Henceforth each seat of the order became a military garrison in addition to a hospice and each knight held himself in readiness to aid with his arms his distressed brethren against the infidel. Slowly but surely the crescent overshadowed the cross. The holy city had to be evacuated. The pious knights after wandering first to Cyprus settled quietly in roads where for two centuries they maintained a sturdy resistance against the Turks. At the first siege in 1480 a handful of the former resisted 70,000 of the latter. The bombardment was so terrific that it is stated to have been heard a hundred miles off and for this extraordinary defense Peter Dabousson grandmaster was made a cardinal by the Pope. At the second siege Lyle Adam with 600 knights of Saint John and 4500 troops resisted and long repelled a force of 200,000 infidels. But the odds were too great against him and after a brave but hopeless defense which won admiration even from the enemy Lyle Adam capitulated. After personal visits to the Pope and to the courts of Madrid, Paris and London the then almost valueless Rock of Malta was bestowed on the knights in 1530. Its noble harbors and deep and sheltered inlets were then as now but there was only one little town called Bergo Valetta as yet was not. In London Lyle Adam lodged at the provincial hostelry of the order Saint John's Clerkenwell still a house of entertainment though of a very different kind. Henry the Eighth received him with apparent cordiality and shortly afterwards confiscated all the English possessions of the knights. This was but a trifle among their troubles. For in 1565 they were again besieged in Malta. Their military knowledge and especially that of their leader the great Lavalette had enabled them to already strongly fortify the place. Lavalette had 500 knights and 9,000 soldiers while the Turks had 30,000 fighting men conveyed thither in 200 galleys and were afterwards reinforced by the Algerian Corsair Drugo and his men. A desperate resistance was made. 2000 Turks were killed in a single day. The latter took the fortress of Saint Elmo with the loss of Drugo just before the terror of the Mediterranean who was killed by a splinter of rock knocked off by a cannonball in its flight. The garrison was at length reduced to 60 men who attended their devotions in the chapel for the last time. Many of these were fearfully wounded but even then the old spirit asserted itself and they desired to be carried to the ramparts and chairs to lay down their lives in obedience to the vows of their order. Next day few of that devoted 60 were alive a very small number escaping by swimming. The attempts on the other forts Saint Michael and Saint Angelo were foiled. Into the eastern harbor now the Grand Mustafa ordered the dead bodies of the Christian knights and soldiers to be cast. They were spread out on boards in the form of a cross and floated by the tide across to the besieged with Lavalette where they were sorefully taken up and interred. In exasperated retaliation Lavalette fired the heads of the Turkish slain back at their former companions a horrible episode of a fearful struggle. Saint Elmo alone cost the lives of 8,000 Turks 150 knights of Saint John and 1,300 of their men. After many false promises of assistance and months of terrible suspense and suffering an auxiliary force arrived from Sicily and the Turks retired. Out of the 9,500 soldiers and knights who were originally with Lavalette only 500 were alive at the termination of the great siege. This memorable defense was the last of the special exploits of the white cross knights and they rested on their laurels the order becoming wealthy luxurious and not a little demoralized. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 the confiscation of their property in France naturally followed for they had been helping Louis XVI with their revenues just previously. Nine years later Napoleon managed by skillful intrigues to obtain quiet possession of Malta but he could not keep it for after two years of blockade it was won by Great Britain and she has held it ever since. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814 our possession was formally ratified. We hold it on as good a title as we do Gibraltar by rights acknowledged by the signing of the peace treaty. The supposed scene of Saint Paul's shipwreck is constantly visited and although some have doubted whether the Melida of Saint Luke is not the island of the same name in the Adriatic tradition and probability point to Malta. At Saint Paul's Bay there is a small chapel over the cave with a statue of the apostle and marble with the viper in his hands. Colonel Shaw tells us that the priest who shows the cave recommended him to take a piece of the stone as a specific against shipwreck saying take away as much as you please you will not diminish the cave. Some of the priests aware that there is a miraculous renovation and that it cannot diminish and when they tell you that under one of the Maltese churches the great apostle did penance in itself for three months. It looks still more as though they are drawing on their imagination. The great catacombs at Sita Veccia Malta were constructed by the natives as places of refuge from the Turks. They consist of whole streets with houses and sleeping places. They were later used for tombs. There are other remains on the island of much greater antiquity. Hagiarchem the stones of iteration date from Phoenician days. These include a temple resembling Stonehenge on a smaller scale where there are seven statues with a grotesque rotundity of outline. The seven Phoenician Kabiri deities great and powerful ones. There are also seven divisions to the temple which is mentioned by Herodotus and other ancient writers. To come back to our own time in 1808 the following remarkable event occurred at Malta. One Froberg had raised a levy of Greeks for the British government by telling the individual members that they should all be corporals, generals or whatnot. It was to be all officers like some other regiments of which we have heard. The men soon found out the deceit but drilled admirably until the brutality of the adjutant caused them to mutiny. Malta was at the time thinly garrisoned and their particular fort had only one small detachment of troops and 30 artillery men. The mutineers made the officer of artillery point his guns on the town. He however managed that the shots should fall harmlessly. Another officer escaped up a chimney and the Greeks coming into the same house nearly suffocated him by lighting a large fire below. Troops arrived. The mutineers were secured and a court-martial condemned 30, half of whom were to be hanged and the rest shot. Only five could be hanged at a time. The first five were therefore suspended by the five who came next and so on. Of the men who were to be shot one ran away and got over a parapet where he was afterwards shot. Another is thought to have escaped. Colonel Shaw tells the story of a soldier of the Sicilian regiment who had frequently deserted. He was condemned to be shot. A priest who visited him in prison left behind him purposely there can be little doubt his iron crucifix. The soldier used it to scrape away the mortar and moved stone after stone until he got into an adjoining cell where he found himself no better off as it was locked. The same process was repeated until he at last reached a cell of which the door was open, entered the passage and climbed a wall beneath which a sentry was posted. Fortunately for the prisoner a regular Maltese shower was pouring down and the guard remained in his box. The fugitive next reached a high gate where it seemed he must be foiled, not at all. He went back, got his blanket, cut it into strips, made a rope, and by its means climbed the gate, dropped into a fos from which he reached and swam across the harbor. He lived concealed for some time among the natives but venturing one day into the town was recognized and captured. The governor considered that after all this he deserved his life and changed his sentence to transportation. Before leaving Malta which, with its docks, navy yard and splendid harbors, fortifications, batteries, and magazines is such an important naval and military station we may briefly mention the revenue derived an expenditure incurred by the government in connection with it as both are considerable. The revenue derived from imports of the usual nature harbor dues etc. is about 175,000 pounds. The military expenditure is about 366,000 pounds which includes the expenses connected with the detachments of artillery and the Royal Maltese Fencebles, a native regiment of 600 to 700 men. The expenses of the Royal Navy would of course be incurred somewhere if not in Malta and have therefore nothing to do with the matter. Our next points of destination are Alexandria and Suez both intimately identified with British interests. On our way we shall be passing through or near the same waters as did St. Paul when in the custody of the Century in Julius, one of Augustus's band. It was in a ship of Alexandria that he was a passenger on that disastrous voyage. At Fairhaven's Crete or Candia we know that the Apostle admonished them to stay for sailing was now dangerous but his advice was disregarded and when the South Wind blew softly the master and owner of the vessel feared nothing but the flattering wind that late with promised aid from Candia Bay then willing ship betrayed no longer fawns beneath the fair disguise and not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Eurocladon before which the ship draped under bare poles. We know that she had to be undergirded cables being passed under her hull to keep her from parting enlightened by throwing the freight overboard. For 14 days the ship was driven hither and dither till at length she was wrecked off Malita. Sudden gales whirlwinds and typhoons are not uncommon in the Mediterranean albeit soft winds and calm seas alternate with them. On the 22nd May 1798 Nelson while in the Gulf of Genoa was assailed by a sudden storm which carried away all the vanguard's top masts washed one man overboard killed an unfortunate midi and a seamen on board and wounded others. This ship which acted her name at the Nile only two months afterwards rolled and labored so dreadfully and was in such distress that Nelson himself declared the meanest frigate out of France would have been an unwelcome guest. An officer relates that in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons Lord Collingwood's vessel the ocean a roomy 98 gun ship was struck by a sea in the middle of a gale that threw her on her beam ends so much so that the men on the Royal Sovereign called out the admirals gone down. She write it again however but was terribly disabled. Lord Collingwood said afterwards that the heavy guns were suspended almost vertically in that he thought the top sides were actually parting from the lower frame of the ship. Admiral Smyth in his important physical hydrographical and nautical work on the Mediterranean relates that in 1812 when on the Rodney a new 74 gun ship she was so torn by the united violence of wind and wave that the admirals had to send her to England although sadly in need of ships. He adds however that noble as was her appearance on the water she was one of that hastily built batch of men of war sarcastically termed the 40 thieves. Many are the varieties of winds accompanied by special characteristics met in the Mediterranean and indeed sudden squalls are common enough in all usually calm waters. The writer well remembers such an incident in the beautiful bay of San Francisco, California. He had with friends started in the morning from the gay city of Frisco on a deep sea fishing excursion. The vessel was what is technically known as a plunger a strongly built two masted boat with deck and cabins used in the bay and coast trade of the North Pacific or for fishing purposes. When the party consisting of five ladies four gentlemen the master and two men started in the morning there was scarcely a breath of wind or a ripple on the water and oars as large as those used on a barge were employed to propel the vessel. The sea was bright and the bark rowed well and at length the desired haven a sheltered nook with fine cliffs sea we covered rocks and deep clear water was reached and a dozen strong lines with heavy sinkers put out. The sea was bountiful in a couple of hours enough fish were caught to furnish a capital lunch for all. A camp was formed on the beach a large fire of driftwood lighted and sun dry hampers unpacked from which the necks of bottles had protruded suspiciously. It was an alfresco picnic by the seaside. The sky was blue the weather was delightful and all went merry as a marriage bell. Later, while some wandered to a distance and bathed and swam others clambered over the hills among the flowers and waving wild oats for which the country is celebrated. Then, as evening drew on preparations were made for a return to the city and all aboard was the signal for the wind was freshening. All remained on deck for there was an abundance of overcoats and rugs and shortly the passing schooners and yachts could hear the strains of minstrelsy from a knot altogether incompetent choir several of the ladies on board being musically inclined. The sea gives rise to the thoughts of the sea. The reader may be sure that the Bay of Biscay the larbored watch the minute gun and what are the wild waves saying came among a score of others. Meantime the wind kept freshening but all of the number being well accustomed to the sea heated it not. Suddenly in the midst of one of the gayest songs a squall struck the vessel and as she was carrying all sail put her nearly on her beam ends. So violent was the shock that most things movable on deck including the passengers were thrown or slid to the lower side many boxes and baskets going overboard. These would have been trifles but alas there was something sadder to relate. As one of the men was helping to take in sail a great sea dashed over the vessel and threw him overboard and for a few seconds only his stalwart form was seen struggling in the waves. Ropes were thrown to or rather towards him an empty barrel and a coop pitched overboard but it was hopeless. That cry is help where no help can come for the white squall rides on the surging wave and he disappeared in an ocean grave amid the mingled foam and driving spray. All gaiety was quenched and many a teardrop clouded eyes so bright before. The vessel under one small sail only the jib drove on and in half an hour broke out of obscurity and mist and was off the wharfs and lights of San Francisco in calm water. The same distance had occupied over four hours in the morning. In the Mediterranean every wind has its special name. There is the searching north wind the grip or mistral said to be one of the scourges of gay province. La cour de parlement le mistral et la durance sont les trois fléaux de la province. The north blast a sudden wind is called borus and hundreds of sailors have practically prayed with the song cease rude borus. The north east biting wind is the grigale while the southeast often the violent wind is the dreaded soroko bad either on sea or shore. The last which need be mentioned here is the stifling southwest wind the siphant but now we have reached the Suez canal. This gigantic work so successfully completed by monsieur le seps forever solved the possibility of a work which up to that time had been so emphatically declared to be an impossibility in effect he is a conqueror. Impossible said the first napoleon. Ne pas français and the motto is a good one for any man or any nation although the author of the sentence found many things impossible including that of which we speak. Monsieur de le seps has done more for peace than ever the disturber of Europe did with war. When monsieur de le seps commenced with not the canal but the grand conception thereof he had pursued 29 years of first class diplomatic service. It would have been an honorable career for most people. He gave it up from punctilios of honor lost at least possibly the opportunity of great political power. He was required to endorse that which he could not possibly endorse. Le seps had lost his chance said many. Let us see. The man who has conquered the usually unconquerable English prejudice would certainly surmount most troubles. He has only carried out the idea of Cessostris, Alexander, Caesar, Amru, the Arabian conqueror, Napoleon the Great and Mohammed Ali. These are simply matters of history but history in this case has only repeated itself in the failures not in the successes. Le seps has made the success. They were the failures. Let us review history amid which you may possibly find many truths. The truth alone as far as it may be reached appears in this work. The peace society ought to endorse Le seps. As it stands the peace party well-intentioned people ought to raise a statue to the man who has made it almost impossible for England to be involved in war so far as the Great East is concerned for many a century to come. After all who is the conqueror? He who kills or he who saves thousands. End of Chapter 7 Part 1 Chapter 7 Part 2 of The Sea Its stirring story of adventure, peril, and heroism Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Leslie Valencia The Sea Its stirring story of adventure, peril, and heroism Volume 1 by Frederick Wimper Chapter 7 Round the World on a Man of War Continued Malta and the Suez Canal Part 2 To prove our points it will not be necessary to recite the full history of the grandest engineering work of this century. A century replete with proud engineering works. Here it can only be given in the barest outline. Every intelligent child on looking at the map would ask why the natural route to India was not by the isthmus of Suez and why a canal was not made. His schoolmaster answered in days gone by that there was a difference in the levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. That question has been answered successfully and the difference has not ruined the canal. Others said that it was impossible to dig a canal through the desert. It has been done. Lord Palmerston, the most serious opponent in England that Liceps had, thought that France, our best ally today, would have too much influence in Egypt. Events, thanks to Lord Beaconsfield's astute policy by purchasing the Kadeev's interests, have given England the largest share among the shareholders of all nations. It would not be interesting to follow all the troubles that Liceps successfully combated. The idea had more than once occurred to him when in 1852 he applied to Constantinople. The answer was that it in no way concerned the port. Liceps returned to his farm at Barry and not unlikely constructed miniature Suez canals for irrigation, thought of camels while he improved the breed of cattle and built houses but not on the sand of the desert. Indeed, it was while on the roof of one of his houses, then in course of construction that the news came to him of the then Pacha of Egypt's death, Mehmet Ali. They had once been on familiar terms. Mehmet Ali was a terribly severe man and seeing that his son Said Pacha, a son he loved, was growing fat, he had sent him to climb the mass of ships for two hours a day to row and walk round the walls of the city. Poor little fat boy, he used to steal round to Liceps rooms and surreptitiously obtain meals from the servants. Those surreptitious dinners did not greatly hurt the interests of the canal as we shall see. Mehmet Ali had been a moderate tyrant to speak advisedly. His son-in-law, Def Der Dar, known popularly as The Scourge of God was his acting vice-regent. The brute once had his groom shod like a horse for having badly shot his charger. A woman of the country one day came before him, complaining of a soldier who had bought milk of her and had refused to pay for it. Art thou sure of it? asked the tyrant. Take care, they shall tear open thy stomach if no milk is found in that of the soldier. They opened the stomach of the soldier. Milk was found in it. The poor woman was saved. But although his successor was not everything that could be wished, he had a good heart and was not the terrible Turk. In 1854, Liceps met Sayid Pacha in his tent on a plane between Alexandria and Lake Mariotis, a swamp in the desert. His highness was in good humor and understood Liceps perfectly. A fine Arabian horse had been presented to him by Sayid Pacha a few days previously. After examining the plans and investigating the subject, the ruler of Egypt said, I accept your plan. We will talk about the means of its execution during the rest of the journey. Consider the matter settled. You may rely on me. He sent immediately for his generals and made them sit down, repeating the previous conversation and inviting them to give their opinion of the proposals of his friend. The impromptu counselors were better able to pronounce on equestrian evolutions than on a vast enterprise, but Liceps, a good horseman, had just before cleared a wall with his charger, and they, seeing how he stood with the viceroy, gave their assent by raising their hands to their foreheads. The dinner tray then appeared, and with one accord, all plunged their spoons into the same bowl, which contained some first-class soup. Liceps considered it very naturally as the most important negotiation he had ever made. Results speak for themselves. In 1854, there was not a fly in that hideous desert. Water, sheep, fowls, and provisions of all kinds had to be carried by the explorers. When at night they opened the coops of fowls and let the sheep run loose, they did it with confidence. They were sure that next morning in that desolate place, the animals dare not desert the party. When, says Liceps, we struck our camp of a morning, if at the moment of departure a hen had lurked behind, pecking at the foot of a tamarisk shrub, quickly she would jump up on the back of a camel to regain her cage. That desert is now peopled. There are three important towns. Port Said had not existed before. There is now what would be called a city in America on a much smaller basis of truth. It has 12,000 people. Suez, with 15,000 people, was not much more than a village previously. Ismaelia, halfway on the route, has 5,000 or 6,000 of population. There are other towns or villages. A canal actually affecting a junction between the two seas via the Nile was made in the period of the Egyptian dynasties. It doubtless fulfilled its purpose for the passage of galleys and smaller vessels. History hardly tells us when it was rendered useless. Napoleon I knew the importance of the undertaking and appointed a commission of engineers to report on it. Monsieur La Paire presented him a report on its feasibility and Napoleon observed on it. It is a grand work and though I cannot execute it now the day may come when the Turkish government will glory in accomplishing it. Other schemes, including those of eminent Turkish engineers had been proposed. It remained to be accomplished in this century. The advantages gained by its construction can hardly be enumerated here. Suffice it to say that a vessel going by the Cape of Good Hope from London to Bombay travels nearly 6,000 miles over the ocean. By the Suez Canal the distance is 3,100, barely more than half the distance. To tell the history of the financial troubles which obstructed the scheme would be tedious to the reader. At last there was an international commission appointed which cost the viceroy of Egypt 12,000 pounds and yet no single member took a farthing for his services. The names are sufficient to prove with what care it had been selected. On the part of England Messrs Rendall and McLean both eminent engineers with for a sufficiently good reason Commander Hewitt of the East India Company Service who for 27 years had been making surveys in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. France gave two of her greatest engineers, Messrs Renault and Lisoux. Austria, one of the greatest practical engineers in the world. Messir de Negrelli. Italy, Messir Pagliocapa. Germany, the distinguished privy counselor Lensei. Holland, the Chevalier Conrad. Spain, Messir de Montecino. They reported entirely in favor of the route. A second international congress followed. The viceroy behaved so magnificently to the scientific gentleman of all nations who composed the commission that Messir de Lisseps thanked him publicly for having received them almost as crowned heads. The viceroy answered gracefully, Are they not the crowned heads of science? At last, the financial and political difficulties were overcome. In 1858, an office was opened in Paris into which money flowed freely. Lisseps tells good-naturedly some little episodes which occurred. An old bald-headed priest entered, doubtless a man who had been formerly a soldier. Oh, those English, said he. I am glad to be able to be revenged on them by taking shares in the Suez Canal. Another said, I wish to subscribe for Le Chemin de Faire de Lille de Suède, the island of Sweden Railway. It was remarked to him that the scheme did not include a railway and that Sweden is not an island. That's all the same to me, he replied. Provided it be against the English, I subscribe. Lord Palmerston, whose shade must feel uneasy in the neighborhood of the Canal, could not have been more prejudiced. At Grenoble, a whole regiment of engineers, naturally men of intelligence and technical knowledge, clubbed together for shares. The matter was not settled by even the free inflow of money. The viceroy had been so much annoyed by the opposition shown to the scheme that it took a good deal of tact on the part of its promoter to make things run smoothly. For the first four years, Lisseps, in making the necessary international and financial arrangements, travelled 30,000 miles per annum. At length, the scheme emerged from fog to fact. The viceroy had promised 20,000 Egyptian laborers, but in 1861, he begged to be let out of his engagement. He had to pay handsomely for the privilege. Although the men were paid higher than they had ever been before, their labor was cheap. It cost double or treble the amount to employ foreigners. The Canal, in its course of a shade over 100 miles, passes through several salt marshes, Les Petits bassins de Lac Amer, in one of which a deposit of salt was found, seven miles long by five miles wide. It also passes through an extensive piece of water, Lake Menzale. At Lake Menzale, the banks are very slightly above the level of the canal, and from the deck of a big steamer, there is an unbounded view over a wide expanse of lake and morass studded with islets, and at times gay and brilliant with innumerable flocks of rosy pelicans, scarlet flamingos, and snow white spoonbills, geese, ducks, and other birds. The pelicans may be caught bodily from a boat, so clumsy are they in the water, without the expenditure of powder and shot. Indeed, the sportsmen might do worse than visit the canal, where, it is almost needless to state, the shooting is open to all. A traveler who has recently passed through the canal en route to India writes that there are alligators also to be seen. The whole of the channel through Lake Menzale was almost entirely excavated with dredges. When it was necessary to remove some surface soil before there was water enough for the dredges to float, it was done by the natives of Lake Menzale, a hardy and peculiar race quite at home in digging canals or building embankments. The following account shows their mode of proceeding. They place themselves in files across the channel. The men in the middle of the file have their feet and the lower part of their legs in the water. These men lean forward and take in their arms large clods of earth, which they have previously dug up below the water with a species of pickaxe called a faas, somewhat resembling a short big hoe. The clods are passed from man to man to the bank where other men stand with their backs turned and their arms crossed behind them so as to make a sort of primitive hod. As soon as each of these has had enough clods piled on his back, he walks off bent almost double to the further side of the bank and there opening his arms lets his load fall through to the ground. It is unnecessary to add that this original mitzie requires the absence of all clothing. Into the channel thus dug the dredges were floated. One of the machines employed deserves special mention. The long couloir, duct, was an iron spout 230 feet long, five and a half wide and two deep by means of which a dredger working in the center of the channel could discharge its contents beyond the bank, assisted by the water which was pumped into it. The work done by these long spouted dredges has amounted to as much as 120,000 cubic yards a piece of soil in a month. By all kinds of ingenious appliances invented for the special needs of the occasion, as much as 2,763,000 cubic yards of excavation were accomplished in a month. Monsieur de la Cepes tells us that were it placed in the Place Vendome, it would fill the whole square and rise five times higher than the surrounding houses. It would cover the entire length and breadth of the Champ Elysée and reach to the top of the trees on either side. Port Said which owes its very existence to the canal is today a port of considerable importance where some of the finest steamships in the world stop. All the through steamers between Europe and the East are own grand P&O Peninsula and Oriental line, the splendid French Missagerie, the Austrian Lloyds, and dozens of excellent lines all make a stay here of 8 or 10 hours. This is long enough for most travelers as sooth to say the very land on which it is built had to be made. In other words, it was a tract of swampy desert. It has respectable streets and squares docks, keys, churches, mosques, and hotels. The outer port is formed by two enormous breakwaters, one of which runs straight out to sea for a distance of 2,726 yards. They have lighthouses upon them using electricity as a means of illumination. Messers Borel and Lavallee were the principal contractors for the work. The ingenious machinery used cost nearly two and a half million pounds, actually 2,400,000 pounds, and the monthly consumption of coal cost the company 40,000 pounds. The distance from Port Said to Suez is 100 miles. The width of the canal where the banks are low is about 328 feet, and in deep cuttings, 190 feet. The deep channel is marked with boys. The mole at the Port Said Mediterranean end of the canal stretches out into the sea for over half a mile near the Damietta branch of the Nile. This helps to form an artificial harbor and checks the mud deposit which might otherwise choke the entrance. It costs as much as half a million. In the canal there are recesses, shall we call them sidings as on a railway, where vessels can enter and allow others to pass. The scenery we must confess is generally monotonous. At Ismailia, however, a town has arisen where there are charming gardens. We are told that it seems only necessary to pour the waters of the Nile on the desert to produce a soil which will grow anything to perfection. Here the Viceroy built a temporary palace and Monsieur de Lesseps himself has a chalet. At Suez itself the scenery is charming. From the height on which is placed another of the Kadeev's residences there is a magnificent panorama in view. In the foreground is the town, harbor, roadstead, and mouth of the canal. To the right are the mountain heights, Ghebel Ataka, which hem in the Red Sea. To the left are the rosy peaks of Mount Sinai, so familiar to all biblical students as the spot where the great Jewish law was given by God to Moses, and between the two the deep, deep blue of the gulf. Near Suez are the so-called Wells of Moses, natural springs of rather brackish water surrounded by tamarisks and date palms, which help to form an oasis, a picnic ground, in the desert. Dean Stanley has termed the spot the Richmond of Suez. Before leaving the canal on our outward voyage it will not be out of place to note the inauguration fit, which must have been to Monsieur de Lecep's the proudest day of a useful life. Two weeks before that event the engineers were, for the moment, baffled by a temporary obstruction, a mass of solid rock in the channel. Go, said the unconquerable projector, and get powder at Cairo, powder in quantities, and then, if we can't blow up the rock, we'll blow up ourselves. That rock was very soon in fragments. The spirit and bonomi of Lecep's made everything easy, and the greatest difficulties surmountable. From the beginning of the work, says he, there was not a tent keeper who did not consider himself an agent of civilization. This, no doubt, was the great secret of his grand success. The great day arrived. On the 16th of November, 1868, there were 160 vessels ready to pass the canal. At the last moment that evening it was announced that an Egyptian frigate had run on one of the banks of the canal and was hopelessly stuck there, obstructing the passage. She could not be towed off and the united efforts of several hundred men on the bank could not at first move her. The viceroy even proposed to blow her up. It was only five minutes before arriving at the site of the accident then an Egyptian admiral signaled to Lecep's from a little steam launch that the canal was free. A procession of 130 vessels was formed. The steam yacht Laigle-en-Ava carrying on board the Empress of the French, the Emperor of Austria, and the viceroy. This noble-hearted empress who has been so long exiled in a country she has learned to love told Lecep's at Ismaelia that during the whole journey she had felt as though a circle of fire were round her head fearing that some disaster might mar the day's proceedings. Her pent-up feelings gave way at last and when success was assured she retired to her cabin where sobs were heard by her devoted friends. Sobs which did great honor to her true and patriotic heart. The viceroy on that occasion entertained 6,000 foreigners a large proportion of whom were of the most distinguished kind. Men of all nationalities came to honor an enlightened ruler and witnessed the opening of a grand engineering work which had been carried through so many opposing difficulties. To applaud the man of cool head and active brain who had a few years before been by many jeered at snubbed and thwarted. To suitably entertain the vast assemblage the viceroy had engaged 500 cooks and 1,000 servants bringing many of them from Marseille, Trieste, Genoa, and Leghorn. Although the waters of the canal are usually placid almost sleepily calm they are occasionally lashed up into waves by sudden storms. One such which did some damage occurred on December 9th, 1877. And now before leaving the subject it will be right to mention a few facts of importance. The tonnage of vessels passing the canal quadrupled in five years. As many as 33 vessels have been passing in one day at the same time although this was exceptional. In 1874 the relative proportions as regards the nationalities of tonnage if the expression may be permitted were as follows. English 222,000 tons French 103,000 tons Dutch 84,000 tons Austrian 63,000 tons Italian 50,000 tons Spanish 39,000 tons German 28,000 tons Various 65,000 tons The present tonnage passing the canal is much greater. All the world knows how and why England acquired her present interest in the canal but all the world does not appreciate its value to the full extent. Suez has special claims to the attention of the biblical student for near it according to some 18 miles south of it the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea. Two million men, women and children with flocks of cattle went dry shod through the dividing walls of water. Holy writ informs us that the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided. The effect of wind in both raising large masses of water and in driving them back is well known while there are narrow parts of the Red Sea which have been forwarded. In the morning the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea even all Pharaoh's horses his chariots and his horsemen. We know the sequel the waters returned and covered the Egyptian hosts. There remained not so much as one of them. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying I will sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider hath he thrown in the sea. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them they sank into the bottom as a stone. End of chapter 7 part 2