Gibraltar looks like a nose on the map, but if you were in a boat out on the Mediterranean Sea, Gibraltar would looklike a long, high rock. Between it and Africa there is a narrow strip of water called the Strait of Gibraltar. It is only about thirteen miles across. It is about half as wide as the Strait of Dover, but powerful currentsare pulling and pushing in and out from the Atlantic Ocean, and only recently has any one been able to swim across it. Inside of the Rock of Gibraltar, England has cut hallways and rooms and windows with long-distance gunsin them, and placed her soldiers there to watch out over the water, and in time of war to fire on any one England does not want to pass through the water-gate.

Long years ago most all of the World that people knew was chiefly around the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Sailorsat that time thought it dangerous to go outside this gate, the Strait of Gibraltar, into the great ocean, and—so the story goes—they set up Pillars on each side of the Strait like gate-posts. They called them the Pillarsof Hercules, and they put up a sign to warn sailors that it was dangerous to go beyond these Pillars. The sign said “Non Plus Ultra,” which meant “Nothing More Beyond.” It was supposed that not far outside the Pillarsof Her-cules the ocean came to an edge where you would tumble off down, down, down to bottomless nothing. Columbus did not believe any such foolishness; he was not afraid. He sailed from Spain, starting from a place outsidethe Pillars of Hercules called Palos. He sailed on and on and on until, as you know, he came to America.

Just before Columbus sailed from Spain there were people living there called Moors, who had come across from Africaand made their home in Spain. The Moors were different from other people in Europe. They did not believe in Christ; they were not Christians. They believed in a man named Mohammed and a god whom they called Allah. The Moorsbuilt beautiful palaces, but they were different from Christian palaces. The Moorish princes lived in one of these palaces on a hill in the city of Granada, which is not far from Gibraltar. The palace in Granada was calledthe Alhambra.