CHAPTER IV
AN EXPLORATION OF GIBRALTAR BAY
"I say, Flix," said Louis, as he seated himself on one of the stools with which the forecastle was provided, as they were passing the Old Mole, "did it ever occur to you that our voyage from the Bahama Islands was over about the same track as that taken by Columbus when he discovered the New World?"
"I never thought a word about it, my darling," replied Felix.
"I wonder you didn't, for I persuaded you to read Irving's 'Life of Columbus'; and you know he took his final departure from the Canary Islands."
"I know he did; but he did not come back that way, and he had some mighty tough weather, just as we had in coming to the Canaries."
"He returned by the Azores. But I was going to ask you a question, Flix."
"Is it a question?"
"Do you remember seeing the word 'cosmography' in the book?"
"I do remember that same; and I remember seeing the dictionary in regard to it. It is a very big word for a mighty small matter."
"Not at all. What do you understand by the word?"
"I should say that, according to Columbus, it meant the science or the art of drawing maps."
"More than that; for it includes geography and astronomy and something more than that, for it is the science of the universe, comprehending the laws and relations of all its parts."
"Then it is a big subject; but Captain Columbus did not mean by it much more than the description of countries, seas, and oceans. He might as well have called it geography. A cosmographer is one who studies the world or the universe; and that is what Columbus was, for he had an astrolabe, and took the sun like any other old salt."
"Very good, Flix; and I am glad you read so understandingly."
"Did you think I was a fool?" asked Felix with a little gentle indignation in his tone and looks.
"I knew you were not; and, like Captain Columbus, you are a cosmographer," replied Louis, rallying his companion with a laugh.
"Is it I? Not much!"
"But you are"—
"Neutral Ground!" called Scott from the pilot-house. "It's about a half-mile wide, and then comes San Felipe."
"Named after our engineer," added Felix.
"Precisely so: and that place is in Spain. You are studying the coast of that country, and therefore you are a cosmographer," continued Louis.
"Well, I haven't got it bad," protested Felix.
"You have it as badly as any of us; for we are all studying the cosmography of the countries we visit, and especially the shores we approach. We are all cosmographers."
"The hill directly ahead of us is the Carbonera Mountain," shouted Scott; and it is possible that he desired to display the knowledge he had picked up during the afternoon to prepare himself as a pilot.
"Carbonera!" exclaimed Felix. "What a word! I wonder if it means anything. What does it mean, Scott?"
"I'm no Spaniard, and I don't know; all I study is the navigation," replied the pilot.
"Navigation! Are you going to take us up to the top of that hill in the Sally Hay?" chuckled Felix, believing he had made a point.
"Not at all; and I am not going to take you to the top of the lighthouse on Verde Island when we return; but I shall use it all the same as a guide to assist me in the navigation, as I do the mountain, which is nine hundred and seventy-one feet high, and therefore in sight even in the night."
"You have got him, Scott," laughed Louis. "Flix, you talk as though you were an old lady who believed that lighthouses were put up to illuminate the watery region where they are placed, instead of to give the mariner his bearings."
"I am not quite so green as the Ragged Staff Light," replied Felix, rather cut up by Scott's victory over him. "But I am as wise as the pilot, for I don't know any more than he does what the name of that mountain means."
"Well, Flix, you ought to have studied Spanish with me, as I asked you to do before we left New York," added Louis.
"Oh, bother! What do I want of Spanish?"
"To inform you what the meaning is of the name of that hill."
"And do you know what it means, darling?"
"It means a place where they burn charcoal."
"I am not going into the charcoal business at present; and it is of no great consequence to me," added Felix.
"Knowledge is not all for business purposes; and it is worth while to have it, even if you cannot make any money out of it in detail."
"Point Mala," said Scott.
"And what does that mean, Louis?" asked Felix.
"Malomeans bad, wicked, or sickly.Malais the feminine of the same word; and it also means the mail, or a mail-bag. I don't know the history of thispunta, or point, so that I cannot tell whether it is a sickly place, a wicked locality, or is the place where they formerly landed the mail on its way to San Roque."
"That is San Roque on the hill to the left of Carbonera Mountain," said Scott, who could hear all that was said on the forecastle.
"Then learning Spanish don't teach you everything, Louis, my darling," chuckled Felix. "It ought to let you know whether Mala is a wicked place or a mail-bag."
"Knowledge has its limits; and generally they are not very far off. But you might as well refuse to believe you had any hair on your head because you can not tell how many capillary shafts it consists of."
"I have none of those things on my pate," laughed Felix, shaking his head vigorously. "If I have, I will scatter them. Are those shafts like the one that whirls the propeller of the Guardian-Mamma, Louis?"
"I am afraid the limits of your knowledge of the ornamental appendage of your fine head are not as near as they might be, for you do not seem to know the nomenclature of the hairs of your head."
"Are you talking Spanish just now, my darling? If not, I ought to have brought a dictionary with me," said Felix with a gasp to denote the depth of his despair.
"Point Mirador," called the pilot.
"Punta Mirador," added Louis.
"You ought to have your head bound with iron hoops, like a beer-barrel, to keep it from bursting with the fulness thereof, for some of the long words are sticking out through the cracks now."
"If it collapses, Flix, I hope you will gather up some of the fruits of the explosion; but at present I do not feel any extraordinary pressure, and I think you will have to acquire your own knowledge in the ordinary laborious manner."
"I don't see the p'nt of that point which you call a punta"—
"I don't call it a punta, but a poon-ta. Pronounce it correctly when you speak Spanish, Flix," interposed Louis.
"Poonta Mirador, then. There is more Mira-Por-Vos in it," added Felix, alluding to the group of islands among the Bahamas on one of which the foster-father of Scott had been picked up.
"Unfortunately for you there is none of that in it, for mirador means a person looking on, or a balcony. You pay your money and take your choice."
"Do you pay it in English or Spanish money? There is something on the hill that looks like a balcony; and I pay my money for that interpretation."
"There is another point before we come to Algeciras called Rinconcillo," added the pilot.
"Call it Rin-con-cil-yo, for double 1 in Spanish is treated like a single letter, sounded like ly joined," Louis explained.
"Cilyo it is, Don Louis; and I shall be wilying to remember it when I am spelying out a Spanish word and filying up my empty head with such eroodition through the capilyary shafts. But I suppose that four-sylyabler means something."
"You observe that the word is a diminutive."
"I observe," replied Felix, shrugging his shoulders, and extending his two hands like a puzzled or a deprecating Frenchman. "I always thought a diminutive meant something small, and this is a four-syllabler, with eleven letters, counting in the y."
"Does infinitesimal cover the length of the word or its meaning, Flix?"
"Give it up! You always beat me in a literary discussion, my darling; and Oi'm moighty proud of your lairnin'."
"Rinconcillo, without regard to the length of the word, means a small corner," said Louis.
"And that's just where I am!" exclaimed Felix. "There is only one thing in which I can beat you."
"What's that, Flix?" asked Morris, who had been too much amused to say anything before.
"In using the swate brogue of Ould Ireland, which I lairned from me modther, long life to her, though she died when I was a babby."
"Welcome to your superiority in that line, my boy; but I hoped you would forget your brogue before this time, for you have talked all the evening till now without a touch of it," added Louis.
"Forgit me brogue? Niver! I'd dhrown mesel' in half a point o' wather afore I'd forgit me modther tongue!"
"There is an opening in the land on the starboard side, just ahead of us," Scott announced. "I suppose it is the River Palmones, and there is a village on the north side of it. I missed the Guadarranque River.
"Small loss; but are we going into this river, Scott?" asked Louis.
"I guess not; I don't know the navigation, and it is not sounded on the chart of the bay. But there are some small vessels in there, for I can see their masts not half a cable's length from the shore."
"We don't want anything of them."
"There is a boat coming out of the river," said Morris.
"All right: there is room enough in this bay for both of us," added Louis, as he glanced in the direction of the outlet of the stream.
"I can see the lights in the houses on the shore of the river," continued Morris.
The moonlight did not produce a very brilliant illumination of Gibraltar Bay, though it was light enough to enable the voyagers on its waters to see all prominent objects on the shores, and to make out the shape of the points projecting from them. There was not a sail in sight in this part of the bay, though the masts of the small craft in the creek could be plainly distinguished. Both of them were schooners, and they were evidently larger than most of the feluccas seen on the Mediterranean.
The boat that was approaching contained five men, two of whom were at the oars. They were pulling out in a direction to intercept the Salihé. Louis examined the boat and the men as well as he could, and though he had been utterly unable to imagine any possible danger in connection with the moonlight excursion, he made up his mind that he, for one, did not care to encounter a group of five men in just this lonely and silent locality.
Scott had strictly observed his instructions to keep within about a quarter of a mile of the shore, and the steam-yacht was now at this distance from the land. The rowers in the boat did not seem to be hurrying themselves at the oars, and Louis concluded that it would be a very easy matter for the Salihé to run away from the strangers when it seemed necessary to do so.
The steamer continued on her course, and no one expressed any alarm. Suddenly the Salihé stopped short, her keel grinding in the sand or mud.