The aspect of Gibraltar completely confuses all your ideas: you no longer know where you are, nor what you see. Just fancy an immense rock, or, rather, a mountain, fifteen hundred feet high, rising suddenly and bluffly from the midst of the waves, and based on a tract of ground so flat and level that you can scarcely perceive it. Nothing prepares you for it, nothing accounts for its being there; it is connected with no chain of mountains; but it is a monstrous monolith thrown down from heaven, the corner of some planet broken off during a battle of the stars--a fragment of some broken world. Who placed it in this position? God and Eternity alone know. What adds still more to the singular effect of this inexplicable rock is its form. It looks like an enormous, prodigious, and gigantic Sphinx, such as Titans might have sculptured, and compared to which, the flat-nosed monsters of Carnac and Giseh are but what a mouse is in comparison with an elephant. The outspread paws form what is called Europa Point; the head, which is somewhat truncated, is turned towards Africa, which it seems to look at with profound and dreamy attention. What thoughts can this mountain be revolving in its mind, in this sly meditative attitude? What enigma is it about to propose, or endeavouring to solve? The shoulders, loins, and hind-quarters stretch towards Spain in nonchalant folds and beautifully undulating lines, like those of a lion in a state of repose. The town is situated at the bottom of the rock, and is almost imperceptible, being a wretched detail lost in the general mass. The three-deckers at anchor in the bay look like German toys--little miniature models of ships, such as are sold in seaport towns--and the smaller craft seem to be flies drowning in milk; even the fortifications are not apparent. The mountain, however, is hollowed out, mined and excavated in every direction; its belly is full of cannons, howitzers, and mortars; it is absolutely crammed with warlike stores. It is an example of the luxury and coquetry of the Impregnables. But all this offers nothing to the eye, save a few almost imperceptible lines, which are confounded with the wrinkles on the face of the rock, and a few holes through which pieces of artillery furtively thrust their brazen mouths. In the Middle Ages, Gibraltar would have bristled with donjons, towers, turrets, and battlements; instead of taking up its position below, the fortress would have scaled the mountain, and perched itself, like an eagle's nest, upon the highest peak. The present batteries sweep the sea, which is so narrow in this part, and render it almost impossible for a vessel to force a passage. Gibraltar was called by the Arabs, Giblaltah,--that is to say, the _Mountain of the Entrance_; and never was a name more appropriate. Its ancient name was Calpe. Abyla, now Ape's Hill, is on the other side of the straits in Africa, close to Ceuta, a Spanish possession, the Brest