386 Notes on Sport and Travel iv 



her, as is also a great lumbering merchant barque 

 outside that calls herself a man-of-war. If the 

 population of Gibraltar can get her off they will ; and 

 even the fishermen at Catalan Bay are quite Southern 

 in their proclivities. 



The walks about the Rock are very delicious, and 

 cut with a good eye for a prospect. It is a great 

 run all round, and up, and down ; the Rock is not as 

 bare of vegetation as it looks from a distance, and 

 all sorts of pretty and quaint plants crop up where- 

 ever there is a handful of soil. The ridge at the top 

 is a real knife-back very often, with a sheer precipice 

 down to the sea on one side, and another, only a 

 little less sloping, down to the town on the other. 

 You might roll a stone from the top almost into the 

 chimneys of Gibraltar ; but if you did, you would be 

 immediately shot by a sentry, then hanged, drawn, 

 and quartered, and made into mess-beef by the Jews. 

 What is the use of firing at such a thing as the Rock 

 of Gibraltar ? You might as well bombard Mont 

 Blanc. Even the old Moorish castle still stands, 

 though with innumerable scars received in the 

 various attacks. The guns are everywhere, on every 

 little terrace of rock, masked among bright scarlet 

 aloes and fancy shrubs, in long galleries, and in 

 regular-built batteries — I shall not say how many 

 there are for fear of giving evidence to the enemy, and, 

 moreover, I have forgotten. The town is highly 

 nasty and smells so ; it is really disgraceful to the 

 military. A garrison town should, in the fitness of 



