Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/557

Rh (1,356 feet) the land stretches northward towards Spain in a low-lying flat isthmus not more than half a mile in width. The central portion of this, a third of a mile in width, is kept as a neutral zone between the Spanish and British possessions, and is lined with sentry boxes on either side. The fortifications of the side towards Spain consist mainly in galleries hollowed out in the face of Rockgun during the four years' siege ending in 1783. Signal Station (1,295 feet) and Highest Point (1,396 feet) are surmounted with great guns which defend the twelve miles of strait that flow between Europa point and Africa.

Entering the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the Minneapolis steamed along the coast of Spain for about four hundred miles and

anchored in the harbor of Valencia, the first American man-of-war to visit a Spanish port since the late unpleasantness.

At Valencia, the home of the 'Cid,' the annual fair was in progress, and the chief attraction was the bull fight. During the eight days of the fair, five Corridas de toros were held. Six bulls were killed at each of four of these fights, and in the other, 'extra-special' fight, eight bulls were slaughtered. Those of us who went to the first of these disgusting spectacles saw six bulls and nineteen horses butchered, and it is hardly necessary to remark that we did not go a second time.

The bull ring is of the shape that the name signifies, the one in Valencia being the largest in Spain, capable of holding 17,000 people. The fight is opened by a procession into the ring of those taking part.