conversing, smoking, mildly chaffing each other, and
exchanging "tips" as to the next Derby. They make a book in a quiet way,
and occasionally invest in a dozen tickets in a Spanish lottery. What
will you? One cannot perpetually play shop, and the British officer has
a rooted objection to it, although he does his duty like a man when the
tug of war arises. Better that he should join in a regimental
sweepstakes, or lose what he can afford to lose to a comrade, than give
way to the blues. He does not gamble or curse, like his Spanish
_confrere_; his potations are not deep, nor is he quick to quarrel. Then
let him race on the Neutral Ground; let him hunt with the Calpe pack;
and let him back his fancy for the big event at Epsom. Those are his
chief excitements at Gib, and help to give a fillip to life in that
circumscribed microcosm, pending the anxiously expected morn when the
route will come, or, mayhap, the call to active service, in one of those
petty wars which are constantly breaking the monotony of this so-called
pacific reign.

"Guard, turn out!" cries the Highland Light Infantry sentinel under my
window, and the smart soldier laddies fall in for the inspection of the
officer of the day. What a thoroughly military town it is! By-and-by the
evening gun booms from the heights above, where Sergeant Munro, taking
time from his sun-dial and the town major, notifies the official sunset.
Bang go the gates. We are imprisoned. Anon the streets are traversed by
patrols in Indian file to warn loiterers to return to barracks, the
pipers of the 71st skirl a few wild tunes on Commercial Square, the
buglers sound the last post, the second gun-fire is heard, and a hush
falls over the town, broken only by the challenges of sentries or their
regular echoing footfalls on their weary beats. The thunder of artillery
wakes you in the morning anew, and if you venture out for a walk before
breakfast you thread your way through waggons of the army train or
fatigue-parties in white jackets. You stumble across cannon and
symmetric pyramids of shot where you least expect them; the line of
sea-wall is intersected by figures in brick-red tunic, moving back and
forward on ledges of masonry; the morning air is alive with drum-beats
and bugle and trumpet-calls; everything is of the barrack most
barrack-like; the broad arrow is indented in large deep character on the
Rock. It is impossible to shake off the Ordnance atmosphere. The Irish
jaunting-ca