Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/253

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WAITING FOR THE TANGIER BOAT

BRITONS, MOORS, AND SPANIARDS

The rock withstood for four long years the combined attacks of French and Spanish fleets and armies. The famous floating batteries launched against it, were rendered useless or destroyed by British guns. The rock turned back the onslaught of two nations as calmly as it to-day breaks the fury of the waves harmlessly beating round its base. Gibraltar has been converted by the English into one of the strongest fortified places in the world. The celebrated "rock galleries" are cut in the cliff that rears itself from the flat neck of ground connecting Gibraltar with the mainland. From the windows of the tunnels and cells with which that rock is honey-*combed, huge cannon glare out upon the land-approach, and so challenge grimly the whole peninsula of Spain.