post. In case of an attack by sea, supposing that after immense sacrifice an enemy had succeeded in demolishing the fortifications on the shore in front of the town; in order to effect a landing (this is the only part where the diminished elevation renders such an undertaking practicable), the unfortunate troops would, even before they touched land, be exposed to the fire of all the batteries above the town, themselves out of reach, and concentrating their fire on any given point. From an attack on the land side the rock is defended by three or four admirable fortifications, placed en échelon, and commanding the entrance to the town; and it is impossible to construct regular siege-works in order to attack it on the beach, not only because the loose soil is unfit for trenching, and scarcely raised above the level of the sea, but because numerous impregnable plunging batteries constructed out of the rock, which is here quite perpendicular, command the whole intervening space, from a height of five, six, seven, eight hundred or a thousand feet; added to all which, England, active and indefatigable England, not yet quite satisfied, is adding every day new defences and fresh guns.

Among the batteries which command the approaches to Gibraltar, on the land side, are the famous subterranean galleries, hollowed out of the rock, which have a world-wide reputation. These galleries, immense vaulted passages cut out of the solid rock and following its inclinations, are pierced with large embrasures through which guns of heavy calibre are ever ready to scatter their deadly hail. It must have required a vast expenditure of toil and skill to complete them, more in fact than is proportionate to their utility, for immediately that they opened fire they would be filled with a suffocating vapour which would soon render them untenable. Besides, immediately above and below them, are other batteries in the open air, pointed in the same direction and having the same range, all equally plunging and impregnable.

The panorama of the Bay of Naples is deservedly much celebrated, but it is certainly neither more beautiful in outline or colouring, nor richer in contrasts or recollections, than that commanded from the heights of Gibraltar.

When, after much toilsome climbing, you have reached the summit of the crest, about half-way from either extremity, and turn towards the west-on the right, on the left, and in front, you have, at first, perpendicular falls in the ground, sloping rocks, casements, fortifications, batteries out of all numbering-the work of a powerful nation; the red, yellow, and grey town of Gibraltar

lies below, with its double belt of black artillery, and then the smooth, blue bay of Algesiraz, dotted over with steam-boats and numerous sails. Beyond the bay, on the right, towering above the sloping hills, rich in corn, which come down to the strip of yellow sand (a kind of neutral ground to England and Spain), is the white San Roque, one of the last spurs of the lofty and picturesque mountains of Ronda. Behind this peak, mountain rises above mountain, fading away in the distance into the luminous haze of the horizon.

When the spectator has feasted sufficiently on the enchanting outline and colouring of this part of the landscape, if he turns slowly towards the left, following the frequently steep precipices of these sparingly-wooded mountains, his eyes will rest for a few moments at their feet, where lies before him, hardly two leagues off, the snow-white Algesiraz (the Portus Albus of the ancients), which, crowned with the long arcade of its viaduct, looks down on its bay, graced with the taper spars of a few vessels, and a little to the right of the pretty little island of Verte. On

the fortress of this island floats the yellow and red flag of Spain. The eye then continues to trace the mountains, which, sensibly diminishing in height, form the distant boundary of the fine and trustworthy bay of Algesiraz, gently descending into the sea and disclosing a peep at a little corner of the ocean, the scene (so fatal to us) of the great drama of Trafalgar-that fearful battle in which the three admirals were, one killed, another mortally wounded, and the third taken prisoner.

At this point of the panorama the spectator rises on tiptoe, and stretches his neck to its utmost length, in the effort to discern on the other side of the low mountains the town of Tarifa, from which Guzman the Good, whose memory is even yet so dear among Spaniards, flung down his poniard to the besiegers who threatened to butcher his son if he did not surrender the town. But he can discern only one of the numerous towers, which here and there defend the coast nearest to Africa. These were erected to hold small garrisons, whose duty it was to protect the surrounding country from Moorish pirates. At the present time, these towers serve only as stations for blind custom-house officers.

But little of the ocean can be discovered: the African Cape Spartel, some fifteen leagues off, a little beyond the last mountains of the Bay of Algesiraz, soon shuts it out from view, and becomes on the African side a boundary of the Strait of Gibraltar. Following the line which begins at the Cape, the eye discovers, a little to the left, glittering through the golden haze of sunbeams, the white buildings of Tangier; then the whole coast of Africa spreads out, indented with numerous sparkling bays, until, about four leagues off, but seemingly within reach, so transparent is the air, Abyla, the other pillar of Hercules, towers aloft, precipitous, imposing, and scarped by steep cliffs, which even at this distance are terrific.

Before tracing this picturesque coast of Morocco further to the left, the eye involuntarily returns a little to the right, to watch, just below Tangier, in the line of the current, here made very evident by large luminous patches between three deep blue stripes, the numerous white wings of commerce, here threading the same track, there collected into groups, and there again scattered without order, either running their swift course before the favouring breeze, or struggling ineffectually against it, and the ever inpouring torrent from the Atlantic, and looking enviously on the steamers which shroud them in smoke, as they shoot by them on their swift and certain course, independent alike of wind and current.

In the Strait of Gibraltar, as we have just hinted, the current constantly sets in from the Atlantic, the quantity of water evaporated by the sun in the Mediterranean being greater than that poured into it by all the rivers which discharge their waters into this sea. Hence the waves of the Atlantic are ever rolling towards the strait, especially at certain times of tide, which at Gibraltar varies only three or four feet. This current always sets towards the coast of Africa, a region the very borders of which are inhospitable and dangerous, from reefs of rocks as yet unmarked in any charts, and the eddies which they create. It is always a work of diffiulty for an outward-bound ship to clear the Strait of Gibraltar; indeed it can hardly be done, except with a fresh east wind, and then by giving a good offing to the African coast, the inhabitants of which in stormy nights, light fires on the hills, to beguile and pillage the ill-fated vessels which may chance to be passing. Often I have seen as many as seventy or eighty vessels trying to clear the strait, and have passed many hours with my eye fixed on this portion of the panorama, astonished at the immensity of the commerce, and yet more at the advancement in the arts, sciences, and civilization of the people by whom I was surrounded, and the deeper barbarism that existed within four leagues of the spot on which I was seated.

At the high and imposing rock of Abyla, right over against Calpé or Gibraltar, the strait terminates and the Mediterranean begins. From this point the land recedes almost at a right angle, and not far off you detect the rock and long peninsula of Ceuta, with its glittering white houses. Ceuta, a Spanish town, in its turn on the African shore, serves as a place of transportation for convicts. Still further, and behind Ceuta, two deep gulfs are seen, round which the sea takes a sweep; then a ridge of hills or low mountains, and more than forty leagues off the snowy summits of Atlas lose themselves in the sky. This is an exquisite bit of landscape, and forms a magnificent picture, to which the crests of the Rock of Gibraltar, the ruined tower of St. George, which at their extremity seems to stand sentinel over Europe, furnish an admirable foreground.

Such is an imperfect delineation of one-half of the panorama; the other half defies description; even seeing it is scarcely enough to give a fair conception of it. Many a time, from noon till two o'clock, when the heat is most excessive, I have gone to refresh myself at the perpendicular face of the mountain, looking eastward, and have flung myself under the shelter of a rock on the edge of

VOL. II.

K

the abyss. On my right, in the direction of St. George's Tower, but afar away in Africa, three or four luminous points in the atmosphere indicated the position of the snow-peaks of Atlas, itself lost in the distance; on my left rose the lofty and abrupt mountains of Ronda, and more than five-and-twenty leagues off, where they might be expected to sink into the sea, Malaga might almost be made out, then the shadowy outline of Sierra Nevada, scarcely traceable through the atmosphere; in the centre, the Mediterranean and the sky becoming one in the horizon, yet seeming equally close, like a vast impalpable veil suspended within your reach, from the middle of which white points slowly descend, gradually increase in size, and become large vessels, and glide away beneath you, whilst other vessels suddenly appear, ascend on the veil, dwindle away and are lost to sight without, however, becoming more distant-thrust out the arm you might touch them. This vast veil not susceptible of being grasped, but which is still close to you, banded with soft, clear rays, is of such a fine, fresh, liquidblue that it fascinates you. Your eyes are irresistibly fixed on it: you lose your senses-you feel that your proportions are increasing until you can enfold it all in your arms-you plunge into its delicious freshness, and quench your thirst. It is the gaze of intoxication, from which you regret to find yourself recovering!

Gibraltar was surprised and taken from the Spaniards, who then occupied it, with a garrison of eighty men, by Admiral Sir George Rooke, on the 4th July 1704, during the war of the succession. At the end of this war, in 1713, it was confirmed in possession of the English, in whose power it has since continued, in spite of more than one effort to dislodge them.-A. Guesdon. C. A. J.

THE MOTHER.

IT has been truly said, that "the first being that rushes to the recollection of the soldier or the sailor, in his heart's difficulty— is the mother." She clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all the forgetfulness and hardihood induced by a roving life. The last message he leaves is for her, his last whisper breathes her name. The mother, as she instils the lesson of piety and faithful, filial obligation into the heart of her infant son, should always feel assured that her labour is not in vain. She may drop into the grave, but she has left behind her influence that will work for her. The bow is broken, but the arrow is sped, and will do its office.