Cadiz is surrounded by a tight girdle of ramparts, which laces in its waist like a granite corset: a second girdle of shoals and rocks defends it from the attacks of the waves, and yet, some few years since, a frightful tempest rent in twain and threw down, in several places, these formidable walls, which are more than twenty feet thick, and immense masses of which still strew the shore here and there. The ramparts are furnished at intervals with stone sentry-boxes; you can walk on the glacis all round the town, from which there is only one gate leading to the mainland, and, as you go along, view, out at sea or on the roadstead, the boats, feluccas, and fishing-smacks coming, going, describing graceful curves, crossing one another, tacking about, and playing like so many albatrosses; on the horizon, they appear nothing more than a number of dove's feathers, carried through the air by the capricious breeze; some of them, like the ancient Greek galleys, have on each side of the cutwater at the prow a large eye painted so as to resemble nature, and which appears to watch over the vessel's progress, imparting to this part of it something that bears a vague resemblance to the human profile. Nothing can be more animated, more lively, and more gay than this view. On the mole, near the gateway of the custom-house, the scene is one of unequalled activity. A motley crowd, in which every nation of the globe has its representative, is hurrying, at every hour of the day, to the foot of the columns, surmounted by statues, which decorate the quay. From the white skin and red hair of the Englishman, down to the bronzed hide and black hair of the African, including all the intermediate shades, such as coffee-colour, copper, and golden-yellow, all the varieties of the human race are assembled there. In the roads, a little further on, the three-deckers, the frigates, and the brigs ride proudly at anchor, hoisting every morning, to the sound of the drum, the flags of their respective nations; the merchantmen and steamers, whose funnels belch forth a bicoloured smoke, approach nearer to the shore, in consequence of their drawing less water, and form the first plan of this grand naval picture.