summit of the Peak about an hour, and having minutely examined all that to our unphilosophical eyes, appeared worthy of examination, we made preparation for our return to a lower region. In our descent, we followed a route somewhat different from that by which we had ascended, and in an hour or two, safely reached the spot, where in the morning we had left the Bourico and the baggage. In this portion of our undertaking, there were but few obstacles, and these comparatively trifling, to impede our progress. On coming to the tracts of sand which we had found so much difficulty in ascending, we had only to seat ourselves at the top to be speedily conveyed without effort to the bottom-a mode of travelling at once easy and primitive. We rested for the night, on the same spot where we had slept the preceding one, and again suffered severely from the extreme coldness of the night air. Betimes, we were again on our journey, and before the increasing heat had become oppressive, we reached a cottage, where, being supplied by its hospitable owner, with abundance of goat's milk, we, with the aid of our own panniers, contrived to make a pretty comfortable breakfast. The fatigue we had undergone during the last three days, was excessive, and at the conclusion of our meal, jaded, and almost worn out, we cast ourselves on the ground, and slept till evening, when we recommenced our travel. camels were gone; but had that mode of conveyance been within my option, I should infinitely have preferred walking. All night we were on the road, and about eleven o'clock on the following morning, we had the satisfaction once more of safely rejoining our companions in the ship. The Our Not with our return, however, did our sufferings cease. faces were literally flayed, and our feet were so much blistered and inflamed, as to render us quite unable to walk for several days. Of Teneriffe I saw no more, for the fleet sailed before I was sufficiently recovered to go ashore. K CHAPTER XXV. I am a soldier, and my craft demandɛ, Hydaspes WHEN we quitted our anchorage at Teneriffe, the wind, though it could scarcely be called fair, was such as to enable us, when close-hauled, to lie our course. For the first seven days of our voyage we saw no land. On the eighth, we were close under the northern coast of Africa, running pleasantly along, at about the distance of a gun-shot from the shore. On the following morning, we were in the Straits, with wind and current in our favour-Mount Atlas full in view, and the rock of Gibraltar looming in the extreme distance. It was about noon, that, having entered the beautiful but insecure bay, which forms the only harbour of that fortress, the sound of the dropping anchor gave notice, that all the perils of our voyage were at length past. Nothing, I think, can be more magnificently beautiful than Gibraltar, when seen from the sea. The rock itself, dark, grand, and imposing, marking its fine outline on the upper sky, -the huge craggy precipices, to which even the mountain-goat would fear to climb,-the spots of sunny greenery, brighter by contrast with the barren rocks by which they are encircled, -the houses embowered amid almond-trees and acacias, scattered over the mountain-side, and peeping forth in tranquil beauty from the summits of frowning cliffs, on the scene of wild grandeur outspread above, beneath, and around them, these surely were features of surpassing beauty. But there were yet others. The high and massive walls, that rise from the sea, bristling with cannon, and beating back the roaring waves that break in harmless thunder on their base,-the town, that stretches out along the narrow level and the lower slopes of the hill-not beautiful certainly, but with something about it of picturesque, when viewed from a distance, the chambers hewn in the stupendous perpendicular rock, that commands the landward approach, as if the very mountain would launch forth its thunders, and pour down destruction on its assailants ;-add to all this the associations of siege and battle with which its his< tory,-nay, its very name, is indissolubly linked,-remember that it is the prize for which kings have striven, and thousands, -tens of thousands, bled on land and ocean, and you will gaze on Gibraltar, as I did, with admiration, blended, perhaps, in the imagination, with thoughts of higher cast and deeper birth. We were soon visited by the Pratique Master, who judged quarantine to be unnecessary, and Colonel Grimshawe went immediately ashore to report our arrival to the Governor. On the following morning we landed, and were put in possession of very small and inconvenient barracks in the town. Our quarters were bad; the apartments dark, dingy, and detestable, and surrounded on all sides by the unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded and uncleanly population. I know of no town in which so great a multitude of living beings are congregated within such narrow limits, as in Gibraltar, In the discordant elements of which it was composed, I found new matter of interest and observation. There, Turks, Jews, and Christians, men of all climates, and all religions, were mingled in one heterogeneous mass,―led by one motive,-bound but by one link, and animated by the pursuit of one object. In a society thus collected, there was not, and there could scarcely be expected, any general amalgamation of manners. There was not, and could not be, any common point of social union, beyond that arising from casual and temporary proximity, among people differing so widely in every thing of thought and action, principle and observance. Each nation, in fact, formed a separate society within itself. Englishmen consorted with Englishmen, and talked politics over Port and Madeira: the Greek, with his richly-embroidered jacket and purple cap, and loosely flowing capote, daily met Greek, without encountering “the tug of war:" the Moor, from the neighbouring coast of Barbary, delighted to waste his leisure hours in smoking and drinking Sherbet in a coterie of kindred barbarians: and the Jews, who constituted not the least numerous, and certainly the wealthiest part of the population, permitted neither Christians nor Mahommedan to become partners of their social communion. To all of these there was but one rallying point-the Exchange. There men, of every shade of faith and colour, united in one common worship, and bent the knee to Mammon. In such a population as I have described, there was of course much to interest one, whose curiosity like mine was unsated, and to whom that foreign world on which he had so recently entered was yet new. Gibraltar seemed a sort of Parliament, in which every nation had its representative; and precluded as I then was, both by my profession and the political state of Europe, from enjoying the advantages of foreign travel, I rejoiced in the means thus afforded me of becoming acquainted with the manners and observances of many countries, which I knew it to be more than improbable that I should ever visit. То Gibraltar is a good school for a young soldier. There I was initiated into all the disagreeable arcana of the garrison duty of an extensive and important fortress. Nothing could exceed the strictness with which even the minutest statutory regulation was enforced, nor the severity with which any breach. of duty, however slight, was sure to be visited. At the period of our arrival, the garrison was below its usual complement, and consisted only of three regiments. From this cause, the duty was more than usually severe. Every day, at least half the officers of the regiment were either on garrison or regimental duty, and the daily absence of so many of its members impaired, if it did not destroy, the usual spirit and hilarity of the mess. Before our arrival at Gibraltar, I had never mounted guard; but as my health was good, and I never missed a tour of duty, before we left that garrison, few officers of my standing had mounted so many. And weary work they were. be cut off for a day-a live-long day from all society, with no engrossing subject to interest or occupy the thoughts,-to become a sort of involuntary Robinson Crusoe for one half of every week, was, to one of my age and naturally high spirits, a penance of no ordinary magnitude. I remember now, the dull and heavy spirit of disgust, with which I used to read my name when it appeared in orders for guard. The very names of these guards are to this hour imprinted on my memory, linked as of yore with all their weary associations of monotonous dulness. There was the Mole, and the Ragged Staff, and the Land-Port, and the Water-Port, and the Queen's Lines, and Bayside, and Europa Point, and Europa Advance, and others which I hold at this moment at my pen's point, though I restrain my fingers. I declare, there is not a chair, or a table, or wooden tressel, in any one of the number, no scrap of writing on the wall or the window-panes, no break in the plaster, or fissure in the earthern floor in these guard-rooms, that I could not recall at this moment, in its own individual form, lineament, and pressure. Gibraltar, however, possessed one advantage, of which few other garrisons can boast. There was an excellent library for the use of the officers, to the full benefit of which, they were entitled by a trifling subscription. It contained, even at that period, many thousand volumes, and in truth, constituted a very complete collection of British literature. Of the advantages it afforded I did not fail to profit; and, in the state of isolation from society, in which I was placed by each rapid revolution of the Adjutant's roster, my enforced solitude, came like the toad, ugly and venomous; yet not, perhaps, without a jewel in its head. General It is impossible for me to recur to the period of my sojourn in Gibraltar, and yet to say nothing of the governor, General O'Hara. His appearance, indeed, was of that striking cast, which, when once seen, is not easily forgotten. O'Hara was the most perfect specimen I ever saw, of the soldier and courtier of the last age, and in his youth had fought with Granby and Ligonier. One could have sworn to it by his air and look,-nay, by the very cut of his coat-the double row of sausage curls that projected on either flank of his toupeeor the fashion of the huge military boots, which rivalled in size, but far outshone in lustre, those of a Dutch fisherman or Frenchi postilion. Never had he changed for a more modern covering, the Kevenhuller hat, which had been the fashion of his youth. There it was, in shape precisely that of an equilateral triangle, placed with mathematical precision on the head, somewhat elevated behind, and sloping in an unvarying angle downwards to the eyes, surmounted by a long stiff feather rising from a large rosette of black ribbon on the dexter side. This was the last of the Kevenhullers; it died, and was buried with the Governor, for no specimen has since been discovered, and the Kevenhuller hat, like the Mammoth and the Mastodon, has become extinct for ever. Notwithstanding the strictness of the discipline which he scrupulously enforced in the garrison which he commanded, no officer could be more universally popular, than General O'Hara. In person he had been,-and, though somewhat bent by years, even then was,-remarkably handsome. His life had been divided between the camp, and the court, and he had been distinguished in both. He was a bachelor, and had always been noted as a gay man; too gay a man, perhaps, to have ever thought of narrowing his liberty, by the imposition of the trammels of wedlock. General O'Hara had always moved in the very highest circles of society at home; and, notwithstanding an office of considerable emolument, which, I believe, he held in the Household, had dissipated his private fortune, and become deeply involved in his circumstances. It was this cause alone, which had induced him, late in life, to submit to the |