Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/477

 I climbed out of bed, hurried into a little clothing, and went on deck. Daylight was faintly appearing. On the right, two or three hundred yards away, was the rock of Gibraltar, where the English have a huge fortification which is said to be so old as to be a joke. No one is allowed in the fortification, but it is common report that the big guns are so old and rusty that it would be dangerous to fire them. The rock of Gibraltar is an island, and puts out into the sea. Behind it is the town of the same name; a place as big as Atchison. The picture of Gibraltar shown in advertisements of the Prudential Life Insurance Company looks exactly like it, except that the bay and town behind the rock are not shown accurately. Half-way up the rock of Gibraltar was a light, and a long shelf; I suppose the shelf is a part of the fortification. In the town were occasional clusters of electric lights, as may be seen in any modern town just as daylight is appearing, and I could see a lighthouse on the African shore off to the left. Creeping through the straits were a number of ships, one of them within two or three hundred feet of the "Canada." Then I went back to bed. I aroused Adelaide, and told her of the sight on the opposite side of the ship, but she concluded not to get up Soon after breakfast, we passed Tangier, and left Africa for good. We have been in sight of Africa almost constantly since March 2, when we landed at Durban. During the twenty-four days we were on the "Burgermeister," we were out of sight of it a few days after leaving Port Said, but this morning we saw the African continent again, at its northwestern end, at Tangier, in Morocco An hour later, we