232 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



hounds and come home. This proceeding only resulted 

 in more jibbing and kicking. 



Two officials were always to be seen at the Calpe 

 meets, whom one does not see elsewhere — the pick 

 and crowbar brigade. This consisted of an old 

 Englishman — an army pensioner I believe — and a 

 Spaniard. They were mounted on mules, and each 

 carried a fox-terrier in his arms. Their animals were 

 hung all round with implements for digging out the 

 fox — spades, crowbars, pick-axes, and tongs. The 

 Englishman, clad in an old huntsman's frock, breeches, 

 and gaiters, might have passed as an earth-stopper 

 at home. 



It was the Spaniard whose appearance always pro- 

 voked a smile. Attired as he was in a sombrero and 

 mantle, he looked so entirely out of keeping with his 

 surroundings. The grave. Donnish face added to 

 the incongruity. The necessity for these men lay, 

 of course, in the impossibility of stopping a country 

 almost entirely consisting of rocky hills. In the same 

 way the Dartmoor Hounds have a terrier-boy, who 

 carries a couple of terriers in saddle-bags for use 

 among the rocky tors of that wild district. At 

 Gibraltar, where a straightaway run and a kill in 

 the open are equally the exception, it was unusual 

 not to be able to summon these officials to extract 

 the quarry from his refuge. 



The hunting country at Gibraltar may be divided 

 roughly into two kinds. It is hardly necessary to 

 say that in English territory there is no room for 

 hunting. Consequently the sport begins about two 

 miles out, at the hill known as the Queen of Spain's 

 Chair. From this to north and east stretches a long 



