for me, and I shall be enabled to get rid of that objectionable personal pronoun, first person singular, nominative. I will, therefore, with your kind co-operation, introduce you to the first of our series of rambles.

The climate is beautiful and the air most exhilirating, two, at any rate, of the attributes to an enjoyable walk already manufactured for us. Passing out of the Dockyard precincts we are at once in the English quarter. As I said before, the houses are constructed in terraces: hence we find ourselves continually mounting flights of steps to get from one street to another, so that there is really little inducement for pedestrians to move out of doors at all. Vegetation is very scarce, a want we can scarcely be surprised at when we consider the soil. Of course, that camel of the vegetable world, the cactus tribe, has its representatives in this arid, parched earth, where, seemingly, it is impossible anything else can take root.

As we approach the rising ground, which hides a portion of the town from our view, we observe the walls of an old ruin boldly outlined against the pure blue of the sky. This is all that now remains of a Moorish castle, the last existing monument of that race in Gibraltar.

But we must hurry on, for we have a lot to do: amongst other things, a climb to where that flag flutters indistinctly in the breeze. After sundry twists and turns, now up these steps, now down this street, or that, we find ourselves at the beginning of the ascent, and in as rubbly and dusty a pathway as one would wish to traverse. What with the ruts worn by the rain, and the tearing up of the ground by the passage of heavy ordnance, it would be a difficult matter indeed to select any particular line of march and call it a road. Travellers ordinarily engage mules for the journey; we sailors scorn any such four-footed assistance, though the next time we voyage this way it will be as well to remember that ankle boots are preferable to "pursers' crabs." As we advance, the sun's rays are beginning to get unpleasantly warm, whilst the sand most persistently ignores all the known laws of gravity, by fixing itself in our eyes, mouths, and nostrils.

Herds of goats, with their attendant shepherds, occasionally cross our path, changing their pasturage. Query, what do they live on? I don't think that any of our party have yet seen anything green since we started, not a blade of grass nor even a moss to relieve the stony reality of the hard rock.

With what a sigh of relief and satisfaction we reach the top, and enter within the welcome shade afforded by the signal-house. Refreshments are eagerly sought after, anything to wash the dust out of one's mouth. There is no lack of drinks here, very fortunately; beer and stout, and something—which being put into lemonade bottles passes, I suppose, for that beverage—are speedily, greedily, gulped down our parched throats. The supposed lemonade which, by special desire, fell to my lot, was enough to engender thoughts of disloyalty to a certain lady and her cause in the mind of the stoutest champion of the league; and I took considerable credit to myself that I passed scathless through such a trying ordeal. What stuff! Just imagine, you who are drinking your stout with such keen relish, and smacking your lips in such evident satisfaction, imbibing a liquid as hot almost as the surrounding air, and so insipid that I have tasted medicines far more palatable. Opportunely I call to mind a proverb of our Spanish friends yonder, "The sailor who would caulk his boat must not turn up his nose at pitch;" and as, figuratively speaking, I want to caulk mine, I make a virtue of necessity, and the obnoxious liquid vanishes.

Having regaled ourselves at a very moderate cost, all things considered, we are invited to insert our names in the visitors' book. To satisfy a curiosity we possess we turn back over the pages, to see who has honored this height with their presence. We find princes from Germany, grandees from Spain, professors from America, naval officers of almost all nations, and ladies not a few. One person of a witty and poetical turn thus records his and his friends' visit:—