Chapter 24:
- The Sumter off Cadiz -- the Pillars of Hercules -- Gibraltar -- capture of the enemy's ships Neapolitan and Investigator -- a conflagration between Europe and Africa -- the Sumter anchors in the harbor of Gibraltar -- the Rock; the Town; the military; the review and the Alameda.
The afternoon was bright and beautiful as the Sumter, emerging from the harbor of Cadiz, felt once more the familiar heave of the sea. There was no sail in sight over the vast expanse of waters, except a few small coasting-craft, and yet what fleets had floated on the bosom of these romantic waters! The names of Nelson, Collingwood, Jervis, and others, came thronging upon the memory. Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar were both in the vicinity. The sun, as he approached his setting, was lighting up a scene of beauty, peace, and tranquillity, and it was difficult to conjure those other scenes of the storm, and the flying ships, and the belching cannon, so inseparably connected with those great names.
It was too late to attempt the run to Gibraltar that night, with the hope of arriving at a seasonable hour, and so we ‘held on,’ in nautical phrase, to the light—that beautiful red flash which I have before described—until midnight, when we gave the ship her steam, and turned her head in the direction of the famous Strait, or Gut, as the sailors sometimes less euphoniously call it. The weather, in the meantime, had changed, the wind had died entirely away, and the sea was calm, but rifts of cloud were passing over the moon, indicating an upper current in the higher atmosphere, that might portend storm or rain on the morrow. We steamed along the
