Roque, and immediately to the east of it, there is an eminence called the Queen of Spain's Seat, in allusion to a story that when Gibraltar was taken in 1704, the Spanish Queen sat there disconsolate for three days. The Rock of Gibraltar itself, rising

abruptly to the height of 1450 feet, and about three miles in length, shuts in the bay on the east. The town of Gibraltar lies at the base of the north-western face of the rock. The barracks and the suburban residences of the chief officers and of the

commercial magnates of the place stretch away southwards from the town, along the shores of the bay, as far as to Europa Point, the seaward extremity of the rock.

The rock itself has the sea on three sides of it-on the west, south, and east. At the north end it descends in a precipice of eleven or twelve hundred feet upon the narrow, flat, and sandy isthmus which joins it on to the mainland of Spain. A very slight elevation of the sea would completely submerge this isthmus and make the rock one of "the British isles." On the north and east it is impregnable by nature, rising, as it does on these two sides, right up like a wall for more than a thousand feet. At the southern extremity, and along its western base from Europa Point to the isthmus, there is some little space between the rock and the sea; and here every inch of the ground is elaborately fortified. The rock itself is a huge mass of limestone, gray and weather-beaten, but full of strong vegetation, which pushes out from every crevice, and almost clothes the lower half of the hill in a verdant and flowery mantle of exquisite beauty.

Scarcely had we cast anchor in the bay when the pratique boat was alongside of us, and a demand made for our bill of health. It was handed immediately to one of the pratique boatmen, who laid hold of it with a long pair of tongs, and in this fashion presented it to the visiting officer. This functionary, grasping it, in his turn, with a similar instrument, placed it on one of the thwarts of his boat, turned it over with the points of the tongs, and finding that all was right, informed us we might land when we pleased. We did so immediately; and were greatly amused and interested with the whole scene around us. The light feluccas, with their triangular sails dashing in and out as we approached the mole; the endless varieties of costume when we reached it; the Babel of strange tongues; the pannier-laden donkeys; the fine Spanish mules; the intensely warlike aspect of the place-soldiers at every turn, cannon overlooking every approach-formed altogether a combination as striking as it was novel. There was the turbaned Moor, with

his bare bronzed legs and sandalled feet, clad in his coarse striped haïk, strolling about with his long stride and careless air; there was the black-capped Barbary Jew, with his dark cunning eyes, his round dumpy figure and gausie look, sailing along in his capacious blue blouse and white sash; there was the sharp-witted Greek with his little red Albanian сар; there was the dark-whiskered Spaniard with his round sombrero, like a turban of black felt, his short jacket, red sash, and knee breeches; there was the Genoese native of Gibraltar, with his semi-English costume; there were the various classes of our own military— the 92d Highlander with his tartan kilt and grand feathered bonnet, the artillery-man in his smart blue uniform and the redfrocked engineer; and among these, every now and then, there appeared the unmistakeable face of the canny Scotch merchant, evidently thriving in the midst of this multifarious throng, and probably making his own out of them all.

There are few places in the world where so many tribes and tongues are represented within so limited a space. And no wonder; for Gibraltar is, in some sense, the central point between the four quarters of the world. It is the stepping-stone that connects Europe and Africa, and it is the half-way house between America and Asia. After a short ramble through the town, my wife, my little boy, and myself, procured at the civil police office a permit to ascend the hill, which, however, seemed to be of no manner of use, as no one ever questioned us, or asked a sight of the document. Escorted by a young Spanish gentleman, we went first to the excavations, as they are calledbatteries tunnelled inside the face of the solid rock. In these we penetrated as far as to St. George's Hall, overhanging the isthmus. It is a rude but spacious cavern, scooped out of the live rock. The windows are rugged embrasures, through which heavy guns look ominously out-those in front commanding the isthmus, those on the left sweeping the bay and the shipping, and those on the right having a wide range over the MediterFrom the embrasures the rock descends in a sheer pre

ranean.

cipice of 500 or 600 feet, and ascends to about the same height above. In the face of the same gigantic wall of rock, about 100 feet lower down, there is another excavation, or long tunnel, loop-holed all along in the same fashion as the one through which we had passed, and, like it, mounted with heavy orduance. A third battery crowns the summit of this northern face of the hill, which thus looks down like a huge three-decker anchored alongside of Spain. All these tiers of batteries communicate internally with each other by spiral stairs cut through the heart of the rock. There are altogether, we were informed, about 900 pieces of artillery mounted upon the Rock of Gibraltar.

Leaving the excavations, we toiled up the well-made zig-zags and long slanting paths, along the face of the gray-lichened rocks, till we reached the signal station, which is placed near the middle of the ridge-line of the rock. Here there are three men always on duty, with a powerful telescope beside them. Their business is to signal the approach of the steam-packets, and to give notice of every ship that enters the bay, by hoisting a ball or flag distinctive of her class and country.

The ridge is very narrow. The rock, in short, is like a gigantic wedge resting on the broad end, and with the sharp edge turned up to the sky. The little paved plateau of the signal station is not more than twenty feet broad. To lean over the wall on the one side of it, is to look right down on the Mediterranean. To do the same thing on the other, is to overhang the fortifications that line the shores of Gibraltar Bay. The view from this point is superb. Looking southward across the Straits we had before us the rugged and lofty mountains of Africa, with the stupendous Ape's Hill, rising high above them all; westwards, beyond the bay, we were confronted by the Tarifa mountains in Spain; northwards, the Ronda mountains, conical shaped, of great height, and flecked with snow, bounded the view; and down the long withdrawing valleys that lie between these and the Tarifa mountains, gleamed the winding silvery lines of two fine rivers which finally discharge their waters into the head

of the bay; eastwards, the broad, blue, sapphire-like floor of the Mediterranean stretched away from the base of the rock, bright and unruffled as the azure heaven above. Where else could one hope to combine, in one single view, so much beauty and grandeur of natural scenery, with so much of profoundly interesting historical association. We were standing on one of those pillars of Hercules that bounded, in this direction, the geography of the ancient world, and we were looking out, between those pillars, on that glorious maritime gateway through which Columbus went forth to discover the New World; which now vies in arts, intelligence, and energy, with the most cultivated countries of the Old. We had lying at our feet, and immediately above the present town of Gibraltar, the ancient Moorish fort, built upwards of 1100 years ago, and reminding us of the African torrent that once rolled northwards to the Pyrenees, and that threatened to subjugate Europe to the Moslem power and faith. And, finally, from the summit of the rock, there floated above our heads the "meteor flag of England," telling how triumphautly that torrent has been driven back; and how, not the arms merely, but the civilization and the Christianity of the most advanced of European nations, are marching onwards in that grand "crusade" that is to sweep barbarism away before it, and to enlighten and to bless the whole southern and eastern world.

In the afternoon a kind friend, a resident in Gibraltar, drove us out to his country villa at Campomento, about two miles beyond the Spanish lines. The road for a considerable part of the way lies along the beach, on the very margin of the sea. Here we had a third horse put to the carriage to help us over the soft sand, and we dashed along with the wheels on one side of the carriage splashing through the water. This beach seems to be the favourite ride of the English at Gibraltar, many of whom, ladies and gentlemen, we met cantering along on horseback, enjoying the fresh sea breeze. To us the most interesting sight was the endless line of peasants, some with their donkeys and panniers, others with their small carts, returning home, after