The town of Gibraltar is of limited extent, and the peculiar nature of its position prevents it from enlarging itself in any direction. Its two or three long streets run parallel to the sea-lines, and are intersected at right angles by numerous narrow squalid lanes, which ascend the precipitous acclivity by flights of rugged steps, called “Ramps.” The general aspect of the town reminds the visitor of Landport; but these lanes resemble the wynds in the “Old Town” of Edinburgh. “Toilsomely clambering to the top of the Ramps, we find,” says Bartlett, “still narrower lanes parallel to those below, resting on the bare hillside, but the houses having a fine look-out, and being often half buried in shrubbery and creepers, and peeping down upon the confused bee-hive below. Crouching thus, as it does, at the foot of the hot and arid rock, with its streets and alleys closely jammed together for want of room to expand, the town of Gibraltar is in summer excessively close and oppressive, and at no time can it be, we should imagine, an agreeable place of residence; for not only are its habitations confusedly huddled together, but for the most part exceedingly ill built and unsuitable to the climate.” This unfavourable opinion, however, is not confirmed by every traveller; and, as a matter of fact, for some months in the year the climate of Gibraltar is anything but unhealthy. Byron called Valletta, the principal port of Malta, a “military hothouse;” but the term is much more applicable to Gibraltar, where the principal ornaments are cannon, and half the population soldiers or soldiers’ wives, or soldiers’ purveyors. If not the pomp and circumstance of war, at least its more prosaic side is everywhere visible. At every corner parties are relieving guard; the patrol pace the crowded streets to the ear-splitting music of fife and drum; watches are regulated, morning and evening, by gun-fire; the gates are closed at a certain hour; peaceable amateurs sketching bits of the Rock are ferociously challenged by suspicious sentinels; you cannot move a step without abundant evidence that you are in a fortified town, where reigns an unrelaxing vigilance. Yet it is not without its semi-humourous, semi-picturesque aspects, such as Thackeray has drawn with his accustomed distinctness. Suppose, he says, all the nations of the earth to send suitable 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. There the Jews predominate, and 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 girl I left behind me;” while through the lattices of the Spanish wine-shops come the clatter of castanets and the jingle and moan of Spanish guitars and ditties. “It is a curious sight at