and Toulon of the Peninsula; it is there that the Spaniards send their most hardened galley-slaves. We could distinctly make out its rocky precipices, and its crest enveloped in clouds, despite the serenity of the surrounding sky. Like Cadiz, Gibraltar, situated on a peninsula at the entrance of a gulf, is only connected with the continent by a narrow strip of land called the _Neutral Ground_, where the custom-house lines are established. The first Spanish possession on this side is San Roque. Algeciras, whose white houses glisten in the universal azure, like the silvery stomach of a fish floating on the surface of the water, is exactly opposite Gibraltar; in the midst of this splendid blue, Algeciras was having its little revolution. We heard indistinctly the popping report of fire-arms, like the noise made by grains of salt when thrown into the fire. The _ayuntamiento_ even took refuge on board the steamer, and began smoking cigars in the most tranquil manner in the world. The officers of health not having found that we brought any infectious disease with us, we were surrounded by small boats, and, in another quarter-of-an-hour, we were on shore. The effect produced by the appearance of the town is the strangest it is possible to conceive. By taking one step, you have your five hundred leagues, which is rather more than even Tom Thumb did in his famous boots. Just now you were in Andalusia, at the next moment you are in England. From the Moorish towns of Granada and Murcia, you suddenly alight at Ramsgate: you see brick-houses with their areas, their low doors, and their English windows, exactly like those at Twickenham or Richmond. If you go a little further, you will perceive cottages with their painted railings and gates. The public walks are planted with ash and birch trees, with elms and the green vegetation of the north, so different from those small plates of varnished metal which pass for foliage in southern climates. Englishmen have so strong an individuality that they are everywhere the same, and I really cannot understand why they travel, for they carry all their customs with them, and bear their houses on their backs exactly like snails. Wherever an Englishman may be, he lives precisely as he would do in London; he must have his tea, his rumpsteaks, his rhubarb pies, his porter, and his sherry, if he is well; and his calomel, if he is ill. By means of the innumerable packages he lugs about with him, the Englishman always enjoys his _home_ and his _comfort_, which are necessary to his existence. How many objects do our insular neighbours require in order to live--how much trouble do they give themselves to feel at their ease?--and how much do I prefer to all this complicated array, Spanish abstemiousness and privation! It was a very long time since I had seen a female with one of those horrible coal-scuttle affairs, one of those odious pasteboard cases covered with a slip of stuff, and called bonnets, in which