MAGNIFICENT VIEW FROM SUMMIT OF GIBRALTAR.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 17, Issue 59, 27 July 1906, Page 2

MAGNIFICENT VIEW FROM SUMMIT OF GIBRALTAR.

* ATLAS MOUNTAINS LOOM UP IN THE SOUTH, TO THE EAST IS THE MEDITERRANEAN. * "It is not a very hard climb to the signal station on the summit of Gibraltar,” writes a traveller. "The height is no more than 1,350 feet. I visited the station with a friend on a fine November day. The path zigzags up the precipitous western face of the mighty rock ; nowi and again we passed a sentry and had to show our passport. Once we had gained the summit we felt ourselves more than amply paid. Whichever way, one turns the view's are truly supurb. Westwardi, across the bay of Gibraltar, with its magnificent setting of hill and mountain, lay the extreme south of beautiful Andalusia. North and cast stretched Malaga and Granada, with the splendid heights of the Sierra Nevada in the far distance. Eastward rolled the blue Mediterranean ; the white canvas of a sailing barque showed right beneath us, and steamships plied, like gigantic water beetles, pushing steadily on their course. "Southward, close at hand, the nearest point no more than aboiut fifteen miles distant, the wnld land of Morocco met our gaze, rugged chains of mountains corrugating its surface while far away, in dimmest distance, rose a blue range, w'hich was pointed out as the mighty Atlas itself. It was a fine, clear day, and the panorama, whichever way we looked,, was unspeakably grand. It seemed that one could never tire of feasting one’s eyes on so sublime and so historic a prospect.

"No trees exist, but a good deal of bush and shrub, clothes the parched surface. There still lingers about the upper portion of the rock the last remnant of the troops of Barbary apes, which once roamed freely about Gibraltar. ' No more than a half dozen now exist, and modern fortifications and other necessary works are, I fear, making Gibraltar much too busy a place to shelter these shv creatures. Still, it is just possible that this feeble remnant of the only wild apes known to Europe may yet survive and increase. At one time, from much persecution they had sunk to three individuals ; yet in 1894 the number had risen again to at least thirty.

"These apes are barboon-like creatures exactly similar to the taillless Barbary ape found in Morocco. They are supposed by some to be clear evidences of the fact that Africa and Spain were once joined. It is by no means certain that they are indigenous to the rock. A large number were introduced in 1740, and in 1863 fresh blood was again imported.' These apes have been known to scientists for long ages, and Galen, the renowned Roman physician, in his day studied and even dissected them.”—N. Y. Journal.”