I may as well premise, also, that I do not intend to mark with precise date the time at which any of the incidents about to be narrated occurred, excepting when the correctness due to matters of history renders such specification necessary, but to transcribe the notes of my various rambles as they come most conveniently to hand; stating generally, however, that they were written during the period comprised between the years 1822 and 1830, (the greater portion of which I belonged to the Garrison of Gibraltar) and have been "revised and corrected, with additions and improvements" from the journal of an extended tour made several years subsequently. Considering the small number of my countrymen to whom the Spanish language is familiar, I may possibly be accused of having unnecessarily retained many of the proverbs and idioms of the country in their original garb, referring my readers to an English version of them at the foot of each page. But as the caustic, and, in general, quaintly rhymed sayings for which the _Andaluz_ is celebrated cannot but lose much of their _Bætic salt_ on being translated, I am led to hope that such of my readers as do _not_ understand Spanish will pardon the trouble I have thus imposed on them, for the sake of those who do. In conclusion, I have but to express a hope that the Spanish dish I now offer to the public may not be displeasing to the English taste, though I can hardly expect it should be _devoured_ with the relish of the unsophisticated Sancho; who assigned as one of his principal reasons for resigning his government of _Barateria_, that he preferred to "_hartarse de Gazpachos_"[17] than be subjected to a regimen more befitting his exalted situation. CHAPTER I. GIBRALTAR--FORBIDDEN GROUND--DERIVATION OF THE NAME--CURIOUS PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY OF UTRECHT--EXTRACTION OF SAINTS WITHOUT A MIRACLE--DEMONIACAL POSSESSIONS--BEAUTY OF THE SCENERY--AGREMENS OF THE GARRISON--ITS IMPORTANCE TO GREAT BRITAIN, BUT IMPOLICY OF MAKING IT A FREE PORT TO ALL NATIONS--LAMENTABLE CHANGES--SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MOUNTAINEERS OF RONDA--ENGLISH QUIXOTISM--POLITICAL OPINIONS OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES IN SPAIN. Before mounting my impatient steed--not Pegasus, but my faithful Barb "_Almanzor_,"--the companion of most of my wanderings; the partaker of many of my fastings and perils; and whom--such is the mutability of horse dealing affairs--I saw for the last time curvetting under a monstrous weight of whisker and mustaches in Hyde Park;--I will detain my readers a brief space, to cast a glance at the celebrated place on which we are about to turn our backs.