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 will now explore further. All round us are guns and fortifications old and new; soldiers are everywhere; we can see little without special permission, and the authorities are very inquisitive as to our business. The main gates are locked and guarded at night, and we take the time and set our watches by gunfire. We soon learn that we are in no ordinary town, but in a fortress prepared for war. Here we see one of the hot 9 and narrow streets. In the foreground is one of the olive-skinned natives of the Mediterranean. We shall find them everywhere about the harbour; in fact they seem far too many for a small confined town. But in the evening we may meet them streaming away by the north gate, bound for the Spanish town of Linea, which is visible in the distance beyond the neutral ground of the isthmus. There is much work to be done in the harbour, but there is no room for the town to expand, so it is not possible to house the workmen on the spot. It is necessary to limit the number of civilians living in the town, for past experience has proved that they are a danger to health in time of peace, through overcrowding, and a source of weakness to the fighting garrison in time of war. Gibraltar must be governed purely as a fortress; its history is a history of war; in time of peace it has little interest.