Читать книгу The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei. Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office онлайн

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We have seen Gibraltar on the west from the level of the sea; let us 6 turn to the map for a moment and take a bird’s-eye glance at the whole peninsula with its surroundings.

Gibraltar.

The Rock is small: its length three miles from north to south, its greatest breadth not more than three-quarters of a mile. Its area is a little less than two square miles, so that it is quite the smallest in the list of our foreign possessions. A high and narrow ridge, rising over a thousand feet, falls steeply to the land on the north and to the sea on the east; towards the south, where the ridge is lower, it ends in cliffs against which the sea beats always and prevents all access. On part of the west side the lower slopes are more gentle, and on these lies the town with the harbour at the foot.

Let us look now at the approach to Gibraltar from 7 the mainland of Spain. Here we see a corner of the northwest face of the rock, where it overlooks the isthmus. Notice how sheer it rises from the plain, with the flooded moat at its foot. The narrow road, on which we are standing, between the Rock and the sea margin, is the sole entry to the fortress, and we may understand how, in a spot such as this, a small force could easily defy an 8 army. Here is another view of the Causeway, from the hill above, which shows us how narrow is the link connecting the Rock with the mainland. Gibraltar is, in effect, an island; the only real approach is on the west, from the sea.