But as I have just now more freshly in mind the English history of Gibraltar, I leave the Spaniards and the Moors, and betake me to the King's Bastion, on which "Old Eliott" stood on the greatest day that Gibraltar ever saw. And here we must not forget the second in command, his brave companion-in-arms, General Boyd, who built the Bastion in 1773, and who, on laying the first stone, prayed "that he might live to see it resist the united fleets of France and Spain"--a wish that was gloriously fulfilled nine years later, when he took part in the immortal defence; and it is fitting that his body should sleep under his own work, at once the instrument and the monument of that great victory. Even the trees have a historic air, as they are old--at least many of them have a look of age. One would think that the constant firing of guns, the shock and "sulphurous canopy," would kill vegetation or stunt it in its growth. But there are many fine old trees in Gibraltar. Near the Alameda stands a magnificent _bella sombra_ (so named because its wide-spreading branches are dark and sombre, and yet strangely beautiful), which must be very old. Perhaps it was standing a century ago, and heard all the guns fired in the Great Siege, as possibly a few years later it may have heard, across the bay and away over the Spanish hills, even the thunder of Nelson at Trafalgar. [Illustration: WINDMILL HILL AND O'HARA'S TOWER.] On one of the last days I had engaged to take a midday dinner with the pastor of the Scotch Church, who lives in the southern part of the town. It is a pleasant walk beyond the Alameda over the hill, where you can but stop now and then to look down on the long breakwater of the New Mole, or into the quiet dock of Rosia Bay; or to hear the bugles waken the echoes of the hills. After dinner my friend proposed a stroll, in which I was glad to join him, especially as it took me to new points of view, from which I could look up at the Rock on its southern side, as I had already seen it on the north. Taking our way across the level plateau of Windmill Hill, past barracks and hospitals that are here somewhat retired from the shore, we descended toward the sea.