Sketches and Travels in London

by William Makepeace Thackeray

cloud-land, where my friend the meek lieutenant should find the

  yards of his ship manned as he went on board, all the guns firing

  an enormous salute (only without the least noise or vile smell of

  powder), and he be saluted on the deck as Admiral Sir James, or Sir

  Joseph--ay, or Lord Viscount Bundy, knight of all the orders above

  the sun.

  I think this is a sufficient, if not a complete catalogue of the

  worthies on board the "Lady Mary Wood." In the week we were on

  board--it seemed a year, by the way--we came to regard the ship

  quite as a home. We felt for the captain--the most good-humoured,

  active, careful, ready of captains--a filial, a fraternal regard;

  for the providor, who provided for us with admirable comfort and

  generosity, a genial gratitude; and for the brisk steward's lads--

  brisk in serving the banquet, sympathising in handing the basin--

  every possible sentiment of regard and good-will. What winds blew,

  and how many knots we ran, are all noted down, no doubt, in the

  ship's log: and as for what ships we saw--every one of them with

  their gunnage, tonnage, their nation, their direction whither they

  were bound--were not these all noted down with surprising ingenuity

  and precision by the lieutenant, at a family desk at which he sat

  every night, before a great paper elegantly and mysteriously ruled

  off with his large ruler? I have a regard for every man on board

  that ship, from the captain down to the crew--down even to the

  cook, with tattooed arms, sweating among the saucepans in the

  galley, who used (with a touching affection) to send us locks of

  his hair in the soup. And so, while our feelings and recollections

  are warm, let us shake hands with this knot of good fellows,

  comfortably floating about in their little box of wood and iron,

  across Channel, Biscay Bay, and the Atlantic, from Southampton

  Water to Gibraltar Straits.

  CHAPTER IV: GIBRALTAR

  Suppose all the nations of the earth to send fitting ambassadors to

  represent them at Wapping or Portsmouth Point, with each, under its

  own national signboard and language, its appropriate house of call,

  and your imagination may figure the Main Street of Gibraltar:

  almost the only part of the town, I believe, which boasts of the

  name of street at all, the remaining houserows being modestly

  called lanes, such as Bomb Lane, Battery Lane, Fusee Lane, and so

  on. In Main Street the Jews predominate, the Moors abound; and

  from the "Jolly Sailor," or the brave "Horse Marine," where the

  people of our nation are drinking British beer and gin, you hear

  choruses of "Garryowen" or "The Lass I left behind me;" while

  through the flaring lattices of the Spanish ventas come the clatter

  of castanets and the jingle and moan of Spanish guitars and

  ditties. It is a curious sight at evening this thronged street,

  with the people, in a hundred different costumes, bustling to and

  fro under the coarse flare of the lamps; swarthy Moors, in white or

  crimson robes; dark Spanish smugglers in tufted hats, with gay silk

  handkerchiefs round their heads; fuddled seamen from men-of-war, or

  merchantmen; porters, Galician or Genoese; and at every few

  minutes' interval, little squads of soldiers tramping to relieve

  guard at some one of the innumerable posts in the town.

  Some of our party went to a Spanish venta, as a more convenient or

  romantic place of residence than an English house; others made

  choice of the club-house in Commercial Square, of which I formed an

  agreeable picture in my imagination; rather, perhaps, resembling

  the Junior United Service Club in Charles Street, by which every

  Londoner has passed ere this with respectful pleasure, catching

  glimpses of magnificent blazing candelabras, under which sit neat

  half-pay officers, drinking half-pints of port. The club-house of

  Gibraltar is not, however, of the Charles Street sort: it may have

  been cheerful once, and there are yet relics of splendour about it.

  When officers wore pigtails, and in the time of Governor O'Hara, it

  may have been a handsome place; but it is mouldy and decrepit now;

  and though his Excellency, Mr. Bulwer, was living there, and made

  no complaints that I heard of, other less distinguished persons

  thought they had reason to grumble. Indeed, what is travelling

  made of? At least half its pleasures and incidents come out of

  inns; and of them the tourist can speak with much more truth and

  vivacity than of historical recollections compiled out of

  histories, or filched out of handbooks. But to speak of the best

  inn in a place needs no apology: that, at least, is useful

  information. As every person intending to visit Gibraltar cannot

  have seen the flea-bitten countenances of our companions, who fled

  from their Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the morning

  after our arrival, they may surely be thankful for being directed

  to the best house of accommodation in one of the most unromantic,

  uncomfortable, and prosaic of towns.

  If one had a right to break the sacred confidence of the mahogany,

  I could entertain you with many queer stories of Gibraltar life,

  gathered from the lips of the gentlemen who enjoyed themselves

  round the dingy tablecloth of the club-house coffee-room, richly

  decorated with cold gravy and spilt beer. I heard there the very

  names of the gentlemen who wrote the famous letters from the

  "Warspite" regarding the French proceedings at Mogador; and met

  several refugee Jews from that place, who said that they were much

  more afraid of the Kabyles without the city than of the guns of the

  French squadron, of which they seemed to make rather light. I

  heard the last odds on the ensuing match between Captain Smith's b.

  g. Bolter, and Captain Brown's ch. c. Roarer: how the gun-room of

  Her Majesty's ship "Purgatory" had "cobbed" a tradesman of the

  town, and of the row in consequence. I heard capital stories of

  the way in which Wilkins had escaped the guard, and Thompson had

  been locked up among the mosquitoes for being out after ten without

  the lantern. I heard how the governor was an old -, but to say

  what, would be breaking a confidence: only this may be divulged,

  that the epithet was exceedingly complimentary to Sir Robert

  Wilson. All the while these conversations were going on, a strange

  scene of noise and bustle was passing in the market-place, in front

  of the window, where Moors, Jews, Spaniards, soldiers were

  thronging in the sun; and a ragged fat fellow, mounted on a

  tobacco-barrel, with his hat cocked on his ear, was holding an

  auction, and roaring with an energy and impudence that would have

  done credit to Covent Garden.

  The Moorish castle is the only building about the Rock which has an

  air at all picturesque or romantic; there is a plain Roman Catholic

  cathedral, a hideous new Protestant church of the cigar-divan

  architecture, and a Court-house with a portico which is said to be

  an imitation of the Parthenon: the ancient religions houses of the

  Spanish town are gone, or
turned into military residences, and

  masked so that you would never know their former pious destination.

  You walk through narrow whitewashed lanes, bearing such martial

  names as are before mentioned, and by-streets with barracks on

  either side: small Newgate-like looking buildings, at the doors of

  which you may see the sergeants' ladies conversing; or at the open

  windows of the officers' quarters, Ensign Fipps lying on his sofa

  and smoking his cigar, or Lieutenant Simson practising the flute to

  while away the weary hours of garrison dulness. I was surprised

  not to find more persons in the garrison library, where is a

  magnificent reading-room, and an admirable collection of books.

  In spite of the scanty herbage and the dust on the trees, the

  Alameda is a beautiful walk; of which the vegetation has been as

  laboriously cared for as the tremendous fortifications which flank

  it on either side. The vast Rock rises on one side with its

  interminable works of defence, and Gibraltar Bay is shining on the

  other, out on which from the terraces immense cannon are

  perpetually looking, surrounded by plantations of cannon-balls and

  beds of bomb-shells, sufficient, one would think, to blow away the

  whole peninsula. The horticultural and military mixture is indeed

  very queer: here and there temples, rustic summer-seats, &c. have

  been erected in the garden, but you are sure to see a great squat

  mortar look up from among the flower-pots: and amidst the aloes

  and geraniums sprouts the green petticoat and scarlet coat of a

  Highlander. Fatigue-parties are seen winding up the hill, and busy

  about the endless cannon-ball plantations; awkward squads are

  drilling in the open spaces: sentries marching everywhere, and

  (this is a caution to artists) I am told have orders to run any man

  through who is discovered making a sketch of the place. It is

  always beautiful, especially at evening, when the people are

  sauntering along the walks, and the moon is shining on the waters

  of the bay and the hills and twinkling white houses of the opposite

  shore. Then the place becomes quite romantic: it is too dark to

  see the dust on the dried leaves; the cannon-balls do not intrude

  too much, but have subsided into the shade; the awkward squads are

  in bed; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting Spanish

  ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed

  dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the quiet

  waters somewhere; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the

  Mole, which is about to set out on some night expedition. You

  forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself

  up entirely to romance; the sentries look noble pacing there,

  silent in the moonlight, and Sandy's voice is quite musical as he

  challenges with a "Who goes there?"

  "All's Well" is very pleasant when sung decently in tune, and

  inspires noble and poetic ideas of duty, courage, and danger: but

  when you hear it shouted all the night through, accompanied by a

  clapping of muskets in a time of profound peace, the sentinel's cry

  becomes no more romantic to the hearer than it is to the sandy

  Connaught-man or the bare-legged Highlander who delivers it. It is

  best to read about wars comfortably in Harry Lorrequer or Scott's

  novels, in which knights shout their war-cries, and jovial Irish

  bayoneteers hurrah, without depriving you of any blessed rest. Men

  of a different way of thinking, however, can suit themselves

  perfectly at Gibraltar; where there is marching and counter-

  marching, challenging and relieving guard all the night through.

  And not here in Commercial Square alone, but all over the huge Rock

  in the darkness--all through the mysterious zig-zags, and round the

  dark cannon-ball pyramids, and along the vast rock-galleries, and

  up to the topmost flagstaff, where the sentry can look out over two

  seas, poor fellows are marching and clapping muskets, and crying

  "All's Well," dressed in cap and feather, in place of honest

  nightcaps best befitting the decent hours of sleep.

  All these martial noises three of us heard to the utmost advantage,

  lying on iron bedsteads at the time in a cracked old room on the

  ground-floor, the open windows of which looked into the square. No

  spot could be more favourably selected for watching the humours of

  a garrison town by night. About midnight, the door hard by us was

  visited by a party of young officers, who having had quite as much

  drink as was good for them, were naturally inclined for more; and

  when we remonstrated through the windows, one of them in a young

  tipsy voice asked after our mothers, and finally reeled away. How

  charming is the conversation of high-spirited youth! I don't know

  whether the guard got hold of them: but certainly if a civilian

  had been hiccuping through the streets at that hour, he would have

  been carried off to the guard-house, and left to the mercy of the

  mosquitoes there, and had up before the Governor in the morning.

  The young man in the coffee-room tells me he goes to sleep every

  night with the keys of Gibraltar under his pillow. It is an awful

  image, and somehow completes the notion of the slumbering fortress.

  Fancy Sir Robert Wilson, his nose just visible over the sheets, his

  night-cap and the huge key (you see the very identical one in

  Reynolds's portrait of Lord Heathfield) peeping out from under the

  bolster!

  If I entertain you with accounts of inns and nightcaps it is

  because I am more familiar with these subjects than with history

  and fortifications: as far as I can understand the former,

  Gibraltar is the great British depot for smuggling goods into the

  Peninsula. You see vessels lying in the harbour, and are told in

  so many words they are smugglers: all those smart Spaniards with

  cigar and mantles are smugglers, and run tobaccos and cotton into

  Catalonia; all the respected merchants of the place are smugglers.

  The other day a Spanish revenue vessel was shot to death under the

  thundering great guns of the fort, for neglecting to bring to, but

  it so happened that it was in chase of a smuggler: in this little

  corner of her dominions Britain proclaims war to custom-houses, and

  protection to free trade. Perhaps ere a very long day, England may

  be acting that part towards the world, which Gibraltar performs

  towards Spain now; and the last war in which we shall ever engage

  may be a custom-house war. For once establish railroads and

  abolish preventive duties through Europe, and what is there left to

  fight for? It will matter very little then under what flag people

  live, and foreign ministers and ambassadors may enjoy a dignified

  sinecure; the army will rise to the rank of peaceful constables,

  not having any more use for their bayonets than those worthy people

  have for their weapons now who accompany the law at assizes under

  the name of javelin-men. The apparatus of bombs and eighty-four-

  pounders may disappear from the Alameda, and the crops of cannon-

  b
alls which now grow there may give place to other plants more

  pleasant to the eye; and the great key of Gibraltar may be left in

  the gate for anybody to turn at will, and Sir Robert Wilson may

  sleep in quiet.

  I am afraid I thought it was rather a release, when, having made up

  our minds to examine the Rock in detail and view the magnificent

  excavations and galleries, the admiration of all military men, and

  the terror of any enemies who may attack the fortress, we received

  orders to embark forthwith in the "Tagus," which was to early us to

  Malta and Constantinople. So we took leave of this famous Rock--

  this great blunderbuss--which we seized out of the hands of the

  natural owners a hundred and forty years ago, and which we have

  kept ever since tremendously loaded and cleaned and ready for use.

  To seize and have it is doubtless a gallant thing; it is like one

  of those tests of courage which one reads of in the chivalrous

  romances, when, for instance, Sir Huon of Bordeaux is called upon

  to prove his knighthood by going to Babylon and pulling out the

  Sultan's beard and front teeth in the midst of his Court there.

  But, after all, justice must confess it was rather hard on the poor

  Sultan. If we had the Spaniards established at Land's End, with

  impregnable Spanish fortifications on St. Michael's Mount, we

  should perhaps come to the same conclusion. Meanwhile let us hope,

  during this long period of deprivation, the Sultan of Spain is

  reconciled to the loss of his front teeth and bristling whiskers--

  let us even try to think that he is better without them. At all

  events, right or wrong, whatever may be our title to the property,

  there is no Englishman but must think with pride of the manner in

  which his countrymen have kept it, and of the courage, endurance,

  and sense of duty with which stout old Eliott and his companions

  resisted Crillon and the Spanish battering ships and his fifty

  thousand men. There seems to be something more noble in the

  success of a gallant resistance than of an attack, however brave.

  After failing in his attack on the fort, the French General visited

  the English Commander who had foiled him, and parted from him and

  his garrison in perfect politeness and good-humour. The English

  troops, Drinkwater says, gave him thundering cheers as he went

  away, and the French in return complimented us on our gallantry,

  and lauded the humanity of our people. If we are to go on

  murdering each other in the old-fashioned way, what a pity it is

  that our battles cannot end in the old-fashioned way too!

  One of our fellow-travellers, who had written a book, and had

  suffered considerably from sea-sickness during our passage along

  the coasts of France and Spain, consoled us all by saying that the

  very minute we got into the Mediterranean we might consider

  ourselves entirely free from illness; and, in fact, that it was

  unheard of in the Inland Sea. Even in the Bay of Gibraltar the

  water looked bluer than anything I have ever seen--except Miss

  Smith's eyes. I thought, somehow, the delicious faultless azure

  never could look angry--just like the eyes before alluded to--and

  under this assurance we passed the Strait, and began coasting the

  African shore calmly and without the least apprehension, as if we

  were as much used to the tempest as Mr. T. P. Cooke.

  But when, in spite of the promise of the man who had written the

  book, we found ourselves worse than in the worst part of the Bay of

  Biscay, or off the storm-lashed rocks of Finisterre, we set down

  the author in question as a gross impostor, and had a mind to

  quarrel with him for leading us into this cruel error. The most

  provoking part of the matter, too, was, that the sky was

  deliciously clear and cloudless, the air balmy, the sea so

  insultingly blue that it seemed as if we had no right to be ill at

  all, and that the innumerable little waves that frisked round about

  our keel were enjoying an anerithmon gelasma (this is one of my

  four Greek quotations: depend on it I will manage to introduce the