t of Mrs. Quartermaster Damages. She specially imported
frilled petticoats from England to display in the mazy dance, and she
assured me they were turning sere and yellow in her boxes. She never
gets a chance of bringing them out except once in the twelvemonth, when
she is asked to the "Quartermasters' Ball." But there is a reason for
everything, and Mrs. Quartermaster Damages is fat and forty, and not
fair, and--tell it not out of mess--they say she has a tongue.

At this particular time, you perceive, this fortified fragment of the
empire was dull; but usually it is gay, and the officer quartered there
has always an excellent opportunity of learning his trade and acquiring
skill in the gentlemanly game of billiards. He can make maps and surveys
of the neutral ground, and watch the guard mounting on the Alameda, or
read the account of the siege in Drinkwater's days; and when he tires of
the green cloth and its distractions, and of his own noble profession,
he can throw a sail to the breeze in the unequalled Bay, or take a
flying trip to Tarifa to sketch the beautiful from the living model, or
go to Ceuta to see the Spanish galley-slaves and disciplinary regiments,
forgetful of our own chain-gangs; or steam across to Tangier to riot in
Nature and a day's pig-sticking.

The Bay, the Alameda, and Tarifa--these are the three delights of
Gibraltar.

You have heard of the Bay of Naples, and the Bay of Dublin, which equals
it in Paddy Murphy's estimation. I know both; and Gibraltar, the
little-spoken-of, leaves them nowhere. The sky, and the undulating
mirror below that reflects it, are such a blue; the rocks are such an
ashen-grey; the Spanish sierras such a leonine brown, with summits
wrapped in clouds like rolling smoke; and the sun goes down to his bath
in the west 'mid such a vaporous glow of yellowing purple and rosy gold!

The Alameda is a bower of Venus cinctured by Mars. Here is a gravelled
expanse bounded by hill and sea, with cosy benches under the shade of
palmitos--the civilization of the West in alliance with the rich
vegetation of the East. Sometimes, in the morning, five hundred men or
more--garrison artillery, engineers, and infantry--muster there,
previous to marching to their posts; there is a banging of drums, a
blowing of bugles, a bobbing vision of cocked-hats, and a roar of hoarse
words of command--all the pomp and pride and circumstance of glorious
war before the fighting begins. Sometimes, in the e