To such a companion imagine the charm of acting cicerone about the fortifications of old Gibraltar; imagine our evening rambles round Rosia Bay and along the new mole, where the ships of the British and Yankees, the French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Turks, Greeks, Moors, Arabs, and Jews, with all their varieties of ensigns, costume and rig, are riding at anchor, and where many a grim mortar and cannon gun frown over the new bastion; imagine the transition from the sunny Alameda to the deep cool galleries which are hewn in the heart of the living rock, and which are now turned to such war-like purposes as old Pomponius Mela, who first wrote of them, could never have conceived, and where we wandered for many an hour, the pretty donna forgetting the starched customs of her country so far as to grasp my arm with both her hands at times, for the aspect of these places filled her with timidity and awe.
To these subterranean batteries there is admitted but a dim and dubious light that steals through their embrasures, glinting on the damp slime of their walls and roof of rock; and on the heavy ordnance--sixty-eight pounders some of them--which stand on frames of metal, on piles of balls and bombs, and on doors studded with iron, that lead to other and inner vaults full of missiles and unknown terrors.
On, on would we wander, through grim batteries, gloomy magazines, and far-stretching galleries, that seemed to be without end, obtaining at times through the vaulted embrasures a glimpse of the town, then basking in the glare of the noonday sun, or of the sea, shining under a brilliance in which the vessels on its bosom became lost, while we heard only the sound of our own voices, the twang of a bugle, or the sharp rat-tat of a drum in the barracks, the faint boom of a breaker on the cliffs, or the fainter sound of voices in the town, far, far down below, where all the races of the world were mingling; for there, in its streets, might be seen the smart Greek in his scarlet fez and ample kilt; the hideous Afric Jew in his black and white striped cowl; the slow and solemn Turk; the bare-kneed Scottish soldier; the lively Italian sailor, and the puffing, perspiring, and grumbling John Bull.