Beñunes must have been a handsome creature in those days; he is a handsome creature still--tall, finely featured, with flowing black hair--carrying his sixty-five years as lightly as wind-flowers--gay, voluble, enthusiastic--ready for the future, glorying in the past. He took us to a coffee-house and entertained us, and held us enthralled for an hour or more with his tide of eloquence and information. He told us of the trip he had made through Spain with the "Innocents"; of many other trips in lands near and far. He told us of the things in Gibraltar we had not seen--of the galleries and the monkey-pit; also, of the wonderful monkeys themselves who inhabit the Rock and are intelligent almost beyond belief--who refrain from speaking English only because they are afraid of having red coats and caps put on them and being made into soldiers. Gibraltar was once a part of Africa, according to tradition, and the monkeys remained on the Rock when the separation took place. But guides know that a subterranean passage from the bottomless monkey-pit connects the Rock with Africa to this day; also that the monkeys travel back and forth through it and keep posted on warfare and new inventions, in preparation for a time when they shall be ready to regain their lost empire, and that sometimes at dusk, if one lies hidden and remains very quiet, he may overhear them discuss these things, as in the failing twilight they "walk together, holding each other's tails." [Illustration: WE COULD HAVE LISTENED ALL NIGHT TO BEÑUNES] We could have listened all night to Beñunes, for he made the old time and still older traditions real to us. And perhaps Beñunes would have talked all night, for he declared--and we believed him--that he could talk for five hours without a break. Naturally I expected to pay the score in the coffee-house and to make some special acknowledgment to Beñunes for his time. Not at all; he called the waiter with a flourish, threw down more than enough money and told him to keep the change, regretting volubly that we could not partake further of his hospitality. We should have the freedom of the city--of everything--he said, when we came again. Ah me! I suspect there is only one Beñunes, and that he belongs to a time which will soon vanish away. We went through the town--almost a closed town, because it was Sunday, and not an inviting town, I think, at best. Here and there were narrow streets that wound up or down, yet were only mildly seductive. But it is a cosmopolitan town--the most cosmopolitan town on earth, perhaps. Every kind of money is in use there--every language is spoken.