Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/266

234 ever fights amongst them?" "No, people here no fight much, use knife sometimes." They are a very mixed origin, Phœnician, Arab, Norman and Italian.

Next day, passing in sight of Cape Le Bon, and the Coast of Tunis, we made straight for Gibraltar.

6.30 ,

Not allowed to enter, what is in reality a fortress, till 7 a.m., and then, passing a sentry at a sort of funnel entrance cut through rock, warned that we cannot stay the night without a permit. I went up through steep streets to a large piazza, where the morning market is held,—such a medley of colour; Moors from Tangiers, brawny, picturesque fellows, with donkeys half hidden by broad flat baskets, piled high with fruit and vegetables. Going a little further, I fell in with the morning parade service of a battalion of rifles, in a Square, flanked by lofty Spanish houses; a high flight of steps leading up to a doorway, serving as the pulpit for the chaplain; choral matins, supported by military band. Thence I found my way for an Early Celebration to a military church, where the chaplain invited me to breakfast. "Lucky fellow," he said, "on your way home; I'm stuck on this rock for months to come; good society, and not an uninteresting place, but little more than a rock." We had to be on board again by lunch time, towards which I contributed, as my purchase in the market, a basket shaped like a bucket, full of grapes, apricots, and pears, which had cost about two shillings.

That afternoon we steamed across the waters of Trafalgar Bay, with all its memories of Nelson, had a glimpse of Tarifa, and the fortifications on the