On landing, the traveller pushes his way through a motley crowd, crosses the double enceinte, ditches, and drawbridge, and enters the market-place, an open area surrounded by barracks, four, five, and six stories high. Here are to be seen a throng of interesting characters: Algerians and Morocco merchants, with half-naked legs, slippered feet, their shoulders wrapped in their large white bernouse, and their head crowned with the turban or tarbouche; Jews, with venerable beards, black robes, and pointed bonnets; the turbaned Moors, with loose flowing robes, and vests and trousers of crimson cloth; and Spanish peasants, with velvet breeches and leggings of embroidered leather, and the _navaja_, or knife, thrust into their tight crimson sash. Among these the English soldier winds his way, neat, erect, and clean-shaven, as on parade in St. James’s Park; or the Spanish lady lightly treads, her face concealed by her black silk mantilla, and her hand fluttering the inevitable fan. Gibraltar has no public buildings of architectural importance; it is essentially a garrison town, a fortified post, in which art and beauty are subordinated to the useful. Except, indeed, at one spot, the Garden, or Alameda--one of the most charming promenades in the world--which extends from the sea-wall to the base of the precipices, formerly known as the “Red Sands.” Here blooms a garden which is truly “a miracle.” The sub-tropical flora is displayed in all its magnificent variety. A forest of aloe and cactus, of cistus and sweet-scented broom, clothes the rugged flanks and steep declivities of the mountain, if such it may be called. The winding [Illustration: THE ALAMEDA. _Page 122._ ] alleys creep in and out of masses of rose-trees and flowering geraniums; while tall pines, huge mimosas, arbutes, and pepper-plants spread a pleasant shade around. Through these thick screens of verdure a glimpse is here and there obtained of the mast-studded harbour, and the shining waters of the Bay, and the azure hills beyond. Is it possible to conceive of a spot more enchanting? The great defect in landscapes on the border of the sea is, as a French writer remarks, the want of greensward and leafy trees. But here these charms are combined; the richness of a beautiful vegetation blends with the transparency of a sunny sky, and the sapphire light of a sea like that of Naples, to form a picture of supreme attraction. * * * * *