After I had sailed for days, gliding like a streak through the deep,
untroubled water, I came again to the Strait of Gibraltar.

Oh, with what a thrill of delight I saw this time, in these far happier
days than when last I passed through it, this narrow outlet from ocean
to sea. I went through first in a tank, I returned with the broad ocean
for my glorious bed.

I know now that the strait was named for the enormous Rock of Gibraltar,
and that it once was called the Strait of Hercules.

Now "Hercules" is another "myth" you will study about in those old Greek
fables called "mythology." He was one of the gods, and famed for his
tremendous strength. The story goes, that, coming up to a monstrous rock
in the Atlantic Ocean that entirely separated it from the Mediterranean
Sea, Hercules, wishing to pass through from ocean to sea, rent the great
rock into two parts, so making a passage through. And this was how the
narrow outlet came to be called the Strait of Hercules.

Now, for many years the passage has been called the Strait of Gibraltar.
But the two great rocks at the entrance of the strait are called "The
Pillars of Hercules."

Well, through the dividing narrows I darted, and was home again!

And I am thankful to know three great and precious words that Folks have
taught me: Friends! Liberty! Home! Are there any better words than
these? Perhaps so. But I have not learned them. Yet Folks know so much
more than a fish, even a lordly one, can understand, that it is quite