mph in October, and was created a
Marshal in November. All was joy and enthusiasm, but the hapless tools
of ambition who had helped to prepare the way for him below in Algeciras
were not of the jubilee.

At first sight the rock looms up large like a frowning inhospitable
islet, the stretch of the Neutral Ground being so low that one cannot
detect it above the sea-level until almost right upon it. We left the
_Vinuesa_ and entered a boat with a couple of sturdy rowers, who offered
to pull us across the Bay for five dollars. As I dipped a hand in the
brine one of them raised a cry of "Take care!" there were "mala pesca"
there. Mr. Shark, who is an ugly customer, had been cruising in the
neighbourhood, and had taken a morsel out of an American swimmer a
little time before. There were three masts protruding over the water at
one spot, the relics of some gallant ship, and index to one of those
godsends which the Spanish Government is solicitous to guarantee to the
distressed and deserving local fishermen. What a pity it was not the
_Murillo_! That would have been poetic retribution.

No matter: with all thy faults I like thee, Spain, and especially that
brown dusty province of Andalusia, with its oranges and pomegranates;
its dancing fountains splashed with sunshine; its winsome damozels with
such lisping languors of voice; its philosophic waiters upon the morrow,
happy in a cigarette, a melon and a guitar; its muleteers crooning
snatches of lazy song; its peasants with hair tied in beribboned
pigtail; its tawny boys in Manola colours; aye, and its artistic
beggars.

"Ah! now you see the Neutral Ground; that village to the left is Lineas,
where you can get a glass of Manzanilla cheap," exclaimed a companion.

I do not set exceeding store by your pale thin Manzanilla, nor do I care
to load my mouth with the flavour of a drug store.

"There are the sheds we put up the time Prim was expected; they are on
the Neutral Ground, ha, ha! where the soil is supposed to be inviolate;
but we have forgotten to take them down since. We were too many for
them."

And now we are by the landing-stairs, and the Customs' officer demands
our passport in English. We answer him cheerily that we need none, and
to his smiling welcome we step on the soil of British Spain; but it
would be unpardonable to begin describing it at the tail of a chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

Gabriel Tar--A Hard Nut to Crack--In the Cemetery--An Old Tipperary