230 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE CALPE HUNT. 



I SHOULD, I think, begin by saying that of the Calpe 

 Hunt Jin de siecle I am not in a position to speak. 

 My recollections of Gibraltar date from the seventies, 

 and many changes may have taken place since those 

 days. One I know has, and that is that the extent 

 of cultivated ground — or, in other words, prohibited 

 ground — in the vicinity of the " Rock " has greatly 

 increased of late years, and this is, of course, very 

 prejudicial to sport. The Huntsman, too, has changed, 

 and that the Master and Whips have goes without 

 saying, these latter officials being officers of the 

 garrison, and therefore having perforce changed 

 some dozen times at least. ^ 



Among the regular habitues of the Hunt death has 

 been busy. Probably the best -known figure at a 

 Calpe meet which he has removed was the one who 

 was known to all Rock sportsmen as " Jorrocks." 

 The nickname fitted him in his enthusiasm for sport, 

 and the apparent incongruity of his occupation there- 

 with, but not in his personal appearance. Nothing 

 could have been less like the smug, podgy grocer that 

 Leech's pencil had immortalised, than the rather raw- 



1 It is now in civilian hands, but the whippers-in are still officers of 

 the garrison. 



