the little
river Salado, I heard a thing more instructive than history, more exciting
than romance.

A man we met--who looked almost old enough to remember the brave days of
the great tunny fishing--had seen a large automobile, not more than an hour
ago. Evidently, then, we were gaining on the quarry. The news gave me
courage.

The sea and the Straits of Gibraltar were near now, and though they were
not in sight yet, nor the sandy headland of Trafalgar, the smell of salt
came to us with the wind.

At the old Moorish town of Vejer de la Frontera (scarcely a town in this
storied corner of the world but tells, with its "de la Frontera," of days
when the Moors were crushed back, ever farther and farther) we had
travelled full thirty miles from Cadiz. Childish voices screaming round
the car cried that another automobile was not far ahead; and like a
racehorse nearing the finish, we put on speed, dashing at a rush to the
Laguna de Janda, over the ground where Tarik the Conquerer began his great
running fight with Rodrigo. So through little Venta de Tabilla, leaving
the lake to plunge into an imposing gorge which was a doorway to the sea.
There, spread out before, were the straits and the burning African coast;
Europe and Africa face to face; white Tarifa jutting into the green waves;
Trafalgar in the distance, smothered in clouds like clinging memories;
Tangier opposite, a crescent of pearls, tossed seaward by towering blue
waves which were the Atlas Mountains. Taking the wild beauty of the scene
with all that it meant, it was one of the great sights of the world--the
world once supposed to end here, with Hercules' pillars.

As the Gloria sprang on towards Tarifa, a fierce wind which had been lying
in wait leapt at the car and sent her staggering. Gust after gust darted
from ambush, half blinding our ungoggled eyes with the sand they flung by
handfuls into our faces. But we jammed on our hats; and the Gloria bore
the onslaughts bravely, her voice drowned in the screaming of the wind,
which might have been the war cries of those Moorish armies whose
battleground this land had been for seven centuries.

As the good white road mounted the shoulder of a down on its way to
Tarifa, that most Moorish of all Spanish towns stood up like a model cut
out of alabaster in a frame of jade. Clear against the sky rose the
crumbling tower of Guzman el Bueno, the Abraham of mediaeval history; but
our way, instead of leading through the st