u are talking of, and not a soul gets a chance of
escape; while if you are blown on a flat coast, you may get carried
within a ship's length of the beach before you strike, and it is
hard if you can't get a line on shore; besides, it is ten to one
the ship won't break up, for hours.

"No, you may get a landsman to admire your bold cliffs, but you
won't get a sailor to agree with him."

"We seem to be going along fast, although there is not much wind."

"Yes, there is a strong current. You see, the rivers that fall into
the Mediterranean ain't sufficient to make up for the loss by
evaporation, and so there is always a current running in here. It
is well enough for us, going east; but it is not so pleasant, when
you want to come out. Then you have got to wait till you can get a
breeze, from somewhere about east, to carry you out. I have been
kept waiting, sometimes, for weeks; and it is no unusual thing to
see two or three hundred ships anchored, waiting for the wind to
change."

"Are there any pirates over on that side?" Bob asked, looking
across at the African coast.

"Not about here. Ceuta lies over there. They are good friends with
us, and Gibraltar gets most of its supplies from there. But once
through the Straits we give that coast a wide berth; for the
Algerine pirates are nearly as bad as ever, and would snap up any
ship becalmed on their coast, or that had the bad luck to be blown
ashore. I hope, some day, we shall send a fleet down, and blow the
place about their ears. It makes one's blood boil, to think that
there are hundreds and hundreds of Englishmen working, as slaves,
among the Moors.

"There, do you see that projecting point with a fort on it, and a
town lying behind? That is Tarifa. That used to be a great place,
in the time when the Moors were masters in Spain."

"Yes," the captain, who had just joined them, said. "Tarif was a
great Moorish commander, I have heard, and the place is named after
him. Gibraltar is also named after a Moorish chief, called Tarik
ibn Zeyad."

Bob looked surprised.

"I don't see that it is much like his name, captain."

"No, Master Repton, it doesn't sound much like it, now. The old
name of the place was Gebel Tarik, which means Tank's Hill; and it
is easy to see how Gebel Tarik got gradually changed into
Gibraltar."

In another two hours the Straits were passed, and the Rock of
Gibraltar appeared, rising across a bay to the left.

Illustration: View of Gibra