n I was clasped in her embraces
and was polluted by her crimes; when I was a forced partaker in her bad
faith, soul-subduing tyranny, and degrading fanaticism; when I heard only
her bragging tongue, and was redolent of nought but the breath of her
smoke-loving borrachos; when I was a prison for her convicts and a
garrison for her rabble soldiery--Spain, accursed land, I hate thee: may
I, like my African neighbour, become a house and a retreat only for vile
baboons rather than the viler Spaniard. May I sink beneath the billows,
which is my foretold fate, ere I become again a parcel of Spain--accursed
land, I hate thee, and so long as I can uphold my brow will still look
menacingly on Spain.'

Strong language this, it will perhaps be observed--but when the rocks
speak strong language may be expected, and it is no slight matter which
will set stones a-speaking. Surely, if ever there was a time for
Gibraltar to speak, it is the present, and we leave it to our readers to
determine whether the above is not a real voice from Gibraltar heard by
ourselves one moonlight night at Algeziras, as with our hands in our
pockets we stood on the pier, staring across the bay in the direction of
the rock.

'Poor Spain, unfortunate Spain!' we have frequently heard Spaniards
exclaim. Were it worth while asking the Spaniard a reason for anything
he says or does, we should be tempted to ask him why he apostrophizes his
country in this manner. If she is wretched and miserable and bleeding,
has she anything but what she richly deserves, and has brought down upon
her own head? By Spain we of course mean the Spanish nation--for as for
the country, it is so much impassible matter, so much rock and sand,
chalk and clay--with which we have for the moment nothing to do. It has
pleased her to play an arrant jade's part, the part of a _mula falsa_, a
vicious mule, and now, and not for the first time, the brute has been
chastised--there she lies on the road amidst the dust, the blood running
from her nose. Did our readers ever peruse the book of the adventures of
the Squire Marcos de Obregon? {13} No! How should our readers have
perused the scarce book of the life and adventures of Obregon? never
mind! we to whom it has been given to hear the voice of Gibraltar whilst
standing on the pier of Algeziras one moonlight evening, with our hands
in our pockets, jingling the cuartos which they contained, have read with
considerable edification the adve