CORRESPONDENCE.
A LETTER FROM GIBRALTAR.
November 15th. "Gin,"—what is the general idea suggested by that mono- syllable to the home-keeping Englishman ? Something, perhaps, of this sort,—an anachronism, a cause of to a friendly Power; a possession, perhaps useful, perhaps untenable, certainly expensive ; convenient as a station for Fleet and Army in time of peace, but not of practical value in proportion to the show it makes. That it is a magnificent trophy, no one denies ; that our position in the world depends upon holding it, few would assert. But it is impossible to see the Rock and be indifferent. It is a noble prospect as it stands there with its grey head in the clouds, its green sides softly clothed with pine and olive, its cheerful clean-faced houses with their fronts painted in all the colours of the Noah's ark, and their brown-tiled roofs, looking out across the harbour to the shadowy Spanish mountains, and little Algeciras glimmering white at their base ; its echoes seldom allowed to sleep for the roar of cannon and the merry noise of bugles and fifes, the quick tramp of soldiers, and the hoarse word of command from the good-natured boys who march at their side ; or when, as now, the bay is full of castles afloat and the land with sailors ashore, and on this spot is concentrated not only s. specimen of our inestimable little Army, bat also a dozen shipfals of our seamen, and the Queen's health is drunk every evening by fifteen thousand of her sworn subjects, ready to go to-morrow and fight for her and their country at any of the ends of the earth ; when night after night Gibraltar Bay is lighted up like a city in carnival, and all day long gun-practice shakes the windows, and Blue-jackets drill on terra firma,—it would be rather silly than philosophical to pretend indifference or moralise about oar possession of Gibraltar, how we came by it, and what we ought to do with it. We will do that in the study at home, when the winter fog cools the passions. Here, as I sit in an embrasure of the fortress, looking down on Rosie, Bay, with the weather like the best September, I like to think that Britannia rules the waves, and that " Gib " is one prong of her trident. Yet almost as I write, I hear that a torpedo-boat has gone down close by, in broad daylight and smooth water, and in no more difficult evolution than turning a corner ; and one man drowned at his post. "Turned turtle" is all they say, but it does not sound a sufficient explanation of such a catastrophe. It would seem as if our ships were too clever to live. I went over a man-of-war the other day;—they don't call them " men-of-war " nowadays, more's the pity ! The officer who showed the elaborate mechanism of his ship made a pro- viso at every turn. "If she keeps afloat,"—" if we are not all knocked out of time by a big shot,"—" if anybody is alive to work the gun." They seem to have lost confidence in their power to control the enormous and unstable masses of iron which we call ships in these days ; and this apprehen- sion of disaster must tend to sadden the sailor when he has no security that skill, experience, and discipline can ensure his ship against such a calamity as that of the Victoria.' Hear a sailor speak of the loss of the Victoria,' and you will know what I mean. But whether we rule the waves as we did once, or not, there is some satisfaction in thinking that there never was a time when the Navy was not going to the dogs, and Admirals, as Miss Austen says, were not disappointed men ; and if we do not boast to be much better than our fathers, we are perhaps not much worse.
But to go back to "Gib." An anachronism, we say,—so it looks at first ;—but let us consider a little more closely. It is a bit of European soil; and we do not think it desirable to hold bits of European soil,—we have left off hankering for Calais and Dunkirk, and we gave up Heligoland only yester- day, as we gave up Corfu thirty years ago. But we hold Gibraltar, a part of the Spanish mainland, a conquered town in a friendly country. We have moved, it would seem, from the position that our neighbour is our enemy, and not quite arrived at the position that our neighbour is our friend. If the French were to occupy Portland Bill, we should not like it. But is Gibraltar as much a part of Spain as Portland Bill is of England P It was not Spanish at all till four hundred years ago ; our possession of it has lasted almost as long as theirs did, and our conquest has been a great military and historical fact, maintained before the eyes of the world ; whereas theirs, glorious at first, soon passed into the dingy twilight of the Philips, and ceased to be interesting to Spain itself. As for the natives of the Rock (" Scorpions," as the garrison somewhat impolitely call them), they would be sorry to exchange the rule of Queen Victoria for that of Alphonso XIIL, with his needy exchequer and not very victorious Army. Such a change would mean ruin to the inhabitants of Gibraltar, who are never tired of proclaiming their loyalty to England. It would put an end to a profitable contraband trade which in a roundabout way enriches Spain, and is, or was to a large extent, conducted by the Custom-house officials themselves. It is funny to see the population of Linea, a town created by smuggling, making ready day after day for the game of prisoner's base, by which they get their living. Not a woman or a girl leaves the British lines without having her clothes carefully packed with contraband goods, and the very dogs are trained to play the game ; whilst the sentinels no more expect to catch them all than if they were mosquitoes in a room, or perch in a pool,— cosas de Drafia, these, and not to be inquired into by the foreigner. Then again, if we were to give up the fortress, the Spaniards might have difficulty in keeping it for themselves. If any other Power got it, the peace of Europe would be endan- gered; and so on. But then come the other party, and argue that the harbour is of no use to us unless our Fleet is so strong that we can do without the Rook ; that the Rock is a sham, and would not stand a siege ; that Minorca would be a better station,—no one, however, has offered us Minorca; that Gibraltar costs money to keep up. After all, the principal argument is a sentimental one,—that the Spanish do netlike it, and other countries are or may be jealous. Sentimental arguments are the strongest of all, if they are real ; but in the present instance, if we proposed to retire, cui bone? I think we had better stay there.
Some people think Gibraltar dull. There is nothing very big going on. The Guards might be bored there ; but the Guards want so much more than humbler people. They can- not live without Ascot and Goodwood, theatres, clubs, steeple- chases, bunting, and pheasants within reach, plentiful leave ; and it must be allowed that the supply of these delights is limited at Gibraltar. There is a ballroom of the first magnitude ; the theatre is precarious ; steeple-chases are not favoured by the lie of the country ; and it is to be remembered that the country, such as it is, does not belong to us. It is not very easy to take a walk or a drive at Gibraltar ; there is nowhere to go, and you must come back the same way, and Spanish roads are bad. But the country is favourable to riding, and picnics are possible out of the hunting-season. You can get some pig-sticking, if you like to risk your life in the nasty little boat which goes across to Tangier, and which is as dangerous as the pig. There are certainly no pheasants ; and you can shoot red-legged par- tridges in Suffolk. As for the Calpe hunt, those who know it best, say in praising it that it is meant for sportsmen, and that a man must be fond of hunting to enjoy it. That means, I am told, that the sport consists in doing hounds' work, knowing the country, and getting a well-earned fox in difficult circumstances. There are no fences or ditches, and not much hard riding, and the gallopers of the Shires find it tame, caring perhaps, some of them, more for pace than for science. The garrison is proud of.the British institution, and the Spaniards are interested; so much so, that a neighbouring grandee, Senor Larios, is one of the most energetic and liberal sup- porters of the hunt, and takes a leading part in all its con- cerns. Horses—barbs from Morocco—are cheap and fairly good. There are races also, in which polo-ponies compete, and everybody knows the points of everybody's horse. The military races, indeed, are so much the property of the military, that the town does not attend them in large numbers, and they have rather a domestic and friendly character, like a large garden-party with an object, than a serious professional interest. Then there is polo, good and plenty, cricket, tennis, racquets, and other sudorifics. No one need be unemployed. For society, Gibraltar is not London. But though small, the society is various enough not to be dull ; and it is to the credit of the place altogether that the best people, military or civil, seem to like it best. In the first place, there is the garrison, with a small permanent naval element and frequent visitors from the Fleet, besides those who come and go by steamers. Besides this, there is a considerable Colonial staff of legal and administrative officers, who discharge small duties under big names, reminding one a little of Sancho Panza's island, or the court of King Septimus, though for courtesy and hospitality they are hidalgos. Nothing can exceed the kindness of the residents, whether at regimental messes or in private houses, to those countrymen whom chance and the P. and 0. steamers bring to their shores. his curious to be in a place where everybody and everything is as official as at Oxford ; where the day is marked only by guns and bugles for clocks, and the male population spends most of its time in marching and being marched backwards and for- wards, and getting in and out of mufti.
I like to see the British soldier on 0,nd off duty, amusing himself for the most part soberly with his mates, or with his wife and children, if he has them ; and his brother Jack, who furnishes just now a large part of the population of Gibraltar. I like to see him in church, too,—whether at the Cathedral, where young ladies dressed in surplices, with long hair streaming over their shoulders and small caps on their heads, sing voluptuous music, which reminds the worshippers, just a little, of the Savoy ; or in his own plain church, with the Colonel and officers, singing and responding as if he had been used to go to church all his life. What miracle is it that converts these clowns and costers into the perfectly respectful and civil young men who take pleasure in showing you the Navy, and doing you any little service they can ? Rudyard ICipling knows that they are not saints nor paladins ; but discipline has taught them manners. I saw no drunken- ness, though Jack ashore has not always got his land-legs ; and heard no disorder, unless the loud choruses at the music- saloons are disorderly ; and nothing can exceed the comfort and respectability of the canteens and living-quarters. The Army is supposed to be a bad school of morals ; but are the villages and towns a better ? We might do worse than imitate the Germans, and put all our youth throtigh the service.
Discounting the drawbacks of an enervating climate and confined space, Gibraltar is a pleasant place of residence. The winter sun shines as it sometimes does at midsummer in England, but with a clear white light such as we seldom see. It is mid-November, but the air is soft and genial by day and night, and one cannot but wonder why the sun sets so early in the afternoon, and why the beds are curtained with mos- quito-nets; but the insect's mandoline does not let one wonder long ; and if he happens to share your net, you know of it next morning.
The Rock changed from brown to green in the fortnight I spent there. Such is the magic of the sun, that when the rain comes a new spring comes with it. The great beauty of the place is the belt of verdure which runs down from the grey rock to the sea, and is chiefly occupied by the Alameda, or public garden, where the bands play in the afternoon. Here 'are palms, aloes, pepper-trees laden with red berries, feathery stone-pines, with their fresh autumn foliage, all kinds of ever- green trees high and low, bushes thick-hung with pendent white trumpet-flowers, gorgeous scarlet stars, heliotrope, geranium, roses, hothouse flowers, of which a Scotch gardener knows the names. This is late autumn, remember ;—one should be here in May to see Andalusian vegetation in its beauty. The mind ranging to England in November finds no vegetation there but sodden grass, covered with worm-casts, yellow leaves littering the gravel, and a few still shivering on Vie oaks and beeches, and true wintry cheerfulness of daisies and chrysanthemums. The cheerfulness is all indoors, and the South cannot match that. But why should we go indoors when the sun shines as it does here, and I am taking a holiday?
The steamer is signalled, and we leave the comfortable 4Europa Hotel,' drive down to the Ragged Staff,' and call for Ballestero, an honest boatman with a face the colour of a cricket-bat, wrinkles like the new map with the augmenta- tions of the Indies, nutcracker jaws, and whiskers like Figares. Ballestero is not there, but his son will be happy to take us on board. His son—or is it son-in-law, his nephew, cousin ?—never mind ! we tumble into a boat some- how, and row out amongst the lights of the Queen's ships, lights from the town, the Rock, the Spanish land, stars larger than ours reflected in the tremulous water, to the great ship where she lies behind the ironclads, as big as a cathedral, enormous, luminous. A struggle with the baggage ; a quarrel over our boat-fare ; a crowd of new faces ; hurry and dis- comfort ; and our friends go off in their steam-launch into the darkness. The huge ship shakes herself through her whole length, booms some infernal trumpet-call, glides softly away, and in half-an-hour we have lost eight of "Gib?'
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