COSMOPOLITAN GIBRALTAR

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 9 March 1935, Page 11

COSMOPOLITAN GIBRALTAR

One of the Signposts of the World’s Highways

£<OMBRERO, khaki clad, eastern foz, and sailor cap mingle in (Main Street, Gibraltar. Spanish flower girls swing past with their inimitable grace. Constables in London police uniform patrol pavements that glow with rugs and gleam with polished brass. Cheek by jowl with all this Oriental merchandise you will find in a typical little British shop window the Morning Post and familiar trifles. Gibraltar is an English naval and garrison town with a Spanish-African setting—-a musical-comedy scene in deed, far different from the grim iimpression made by the rock itself. Knife grinders whistle the call of their trade. Tawny-faced Moors, stately in turbans and rainbow robes, hold out embossed leatherware for the admiration of the visitor. All the life and; cosmopolitan colour of (Port Said is here, without its vulgar rivalry. Gibraltar is courteous; it has the charm of a serene old age. The rock is one of those signposts of the world’s highways that thousands of travellers see at a distance while comparatively few go on shore. (Cape Horn, the Canaries,- Cape Guardaful, and Cape Verde are other such places which come to mind). Though Gibraltar is now a museum rather than a mammoth fortress, it has lost none of its fascination. 1 know no other town offering such contrasts of beauty and mystery.

foreign influences, Gilbral.tar is an English as London. Mayor and Aidermen, Parish Church of St. Charles the Martyr, Quarter Sessions, Key Sergeant—these are all traditions transplanted from England. Tangier, favoured by a deep-water harbour, has taken most of.the trade and become the real key to the Mediterranean ancl gateway of North Africa as well. But Gibraltar stands firm beneath the rock, still sheltering the ships of the Royal Navy. “When the apes leave the Rock of Gibraltar the English will leave also,” say the Spaniards. The phrase is typical of the mysterious tradition which has grown up round these Barbary apes—the only members of their try.be fofuud in Europe. But no one can say how they came to the rock, or where they go when they vanish from their sunny playground. There are legends ,of course. A path near the summit of the rock leads to O’Hara’s Tower, one of the three' peaks; and near here is the great cav-' ern known as St. Michael’s Cave. Parts .of this black tunnel have never been explored. Men have been lost there. In the old days duels were fought in the entrance chamber by the light of torches. Some believe that St. Michael’s Cave leads beneath the Strait of Africa, and that the apes came through the tunnel. The theory is supported to some extent by the fact that neither skin nor skeleton of an ape has ever been found in Gibraltar.

The very names smoulder with the odour of the stormy past: Casemates Gate, where the galleys of the Moorish invaders lay. Black Hole, once a prison. Catalan Bay, home of the Genoese tunny-fishers, whose redroofed houses were bombarded with fall of rocks ancl avalanches until the Government built a. protecting wall. Southport Gate, where I was fortunate—the famous apes were at play on, the western mountain face that afternoon. Devil’s Tower, built by those early Phoenician seafarers who thought, when they discovered the Pillars of Hercules, that they had reached the very edge of the world. Dragon ’Tree, certainly a thousand years old, in the Government House garden. Spanish Lines, scene of the bullfights, on the road to Spain. Sandy Bay, the Lido of the fighting services, gay with sun hats and beach tents, guarded by a soldier who raises the shark alarm. Market. Squire, last foothold of the Moors in Europe, selling their basket ware and fish, muskmelons and figs. Europa Point, where much of the world’s shipping passes in areview, . Br&ve, solid old Gibraltar, with its houses built into the steep face of the rock tier upon tier, up the street of the ’Forty Steps, down through the Waterport to the sea. In spite of all

Centuries ago the apes made of the rock a stronghold indeed, showering stones on the soldiers toiling at the work of building an unassailable fortress. Though they have long been protected by the. British Government, their numbers have shrunk to a mere pack. To-day there are, perhaps, a dozen apes living in the most inaccessible parts of the rock. Many Gibraltar residents have never caught a glimpse of them.

In their remote fastness the opes live on palmetto root; but sometimes they vary their diet by raiding th 3 gardens of date palms, apples, and pomegranates. In recent years they have become pensioners of the Brit'vh Government. A military dffScer has been placed in command of them, and each day a soldier leaves food to the value of threepence per ape in a lonely spot. Apes Hill, the ancients called Gibraltar. And Apes Hill it remains, for the lone pack is still in possession. They watched the Moors attacking like demons under the Red Flag of Islam ; the French and the Spanish beaten off by the British. They are living enigmas.