The Innocents Abroad

pray so ambitious that it even coated the smokestacks thick with a white crust of salt to their very tops; a week of shivering in the shelter

aloft as if she would climb to heaven-then paused an instant that seemed a century and plunged headlong down again, as from a precipice. The sheeted sprays drenched the decks like rain. The blackness of darkness was everywhere. At long

ned than to be shut up in the sepulchral cabins, under the dim lamps, and imagine the horrors that were abroad on the ocean. And once out-once where they could see the ship struggling in the strong grasp of the storm-once where they could hear

ness that sat upon every countenance could only partly conceal the ravages which that long siege of storms had wrought there. But dull eyes soon sparkled with pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed again, and frames weakened by sickness gathered new l

and their summits swathed in clouds-the same being according to Scripture, which says that "clouds and darkness are over the land." The words were spoken of th

t along the Spanish Main in their boats till a safe opportunity seemed to present itself, and then dart in and capture a Spanish village and carry off all the pretty women they co

canvas till she was one towering mass of bellying sail! She came speeding over the sea like a great bird. Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was for the beautiful stranger. While everybody gazed she swept superbly by and flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze! Quicker than thought, hats and handkerchiefs flashed in the air

f Gibraltar, was yet to come. The ancients considered the Pillars of Hercules the head of navigation and the end of the world. The information the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even the

it and apparently washed on all sides by the sea, swung magnificently into view, and we needed no tedi

t is the walled town of Gibraltar-or rather the town occupies part of the slant. Everywhere-on hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the heights-everywhere you choose to look, Gibraltar is clad with masonry and bristling with guns. It makes a striking and lively picture from whatsoever point you contemplate it. It is pushed out into the sea on the end of a flat,

of words again or more tired of answering, "I don't know." At the last moment six or seven had sufficient decision of character to make up their minds to go, and did go, and I felt a sense of

en in the first place: "That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair; it is because one of the queens of Spain placed her chair there when the French and Spanish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she woul

d feet above the ocean. There is a mile or so of this subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal of money and labor. The gallery guns command the peninsula and the harbors of both oceans, but they might as well not be there, I should think, for an army could hardly climb the perpendi

ish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move from the spot till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses.

om the narrow ledge was magnificent; from it vessels seeming like the tiniest little toy boats were turned into noble ships by the telescopes, and other vessels that were fifty miles away and even sixty, they s

d cooling my baking head in the delicious breeze, an off

ill yonder is calle

Have pity on me. Don't-now don't inflict that

If you had been bored so, when you had the noble panorama of Spain and Africa and the blue Mediterranean spread abroad at your feet,

d), and the English only captured it by stratagem. The wonder is that anybody should ever dream of

forgotten now. A secret chamber in the rock behind it was discovered some time ago, which contained a sword of exquisite workmanship, and some quaint old armor of a fashion that antiquaries are not acquainted with, though it is supposed t

likewise are found skeletons and fossils of animals that exist in every part of Africa, yet within memory and tradition have never existed in any portion of Spain save this lone peak of Gibraltar! So the theory is that the channel between Gibraltar and Africa was once dry land, and that the low, neutral neck between Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind it w

ashed, and trousered Moorish merchants from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged Muhammadan vagabonds from Tetuan and Tangier, some brown, some yellow and some as black as virgin ink-and Jews from all around, in gabardine, skullcap, and slippers, just as they are in pictures and theaters, and just as they were three thousand years ago, no doubt. You can

ws the meaning of any long word he uses or ever gets it in the right place; yet he will serenely venture an opinion on the most abstruse subject and back it up complacently with quotations from authors who never existed, and finally when cornered will slide to the other side of the question, say he has been there all the time, and come back at you with your own spoken arguments, only with the big words all tang

n coast? It's one of them Pillows of Herkewls, I sho

ot both on the same side of the strait." (I saw he had been

t say nothing about it-just shirks it complete-Gibbons always done that when he got stuck-but there is Rolampton, what does

r hand in for inventing authors and testimony, I hav

o anybody, in fact, who will submit to a grievous infliction most kindly meant. His poetry is all very well on shipboard, notwithstanding when he wrote an "Ode to the Ocean in a Storm" in one half hour, and an "Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the Ship" in the next,

this by constant use has become shortened to "Interrogation." He has distinguished himself twice already. In Fayal they pointed out a hill and told him it was 800 feet high and 1,100 feet long. And they told him there was a tunnel 2,000 fee

er-stands up out of the top of the hill about two hundred feet

braggadocio about America and the wonders she can perform! He told one of them a co

oard a small steamer bound for the venerable Moorish town of Tangier, Africa. Nothing could be more absolutely certain than that we are enjoying ourselves. One can no

of fear. The whole garrison turned out under arms and assumed a threatening attitude-yet still we did not fear. The entir

en Sancom. I said it would be a good idea to get some more garrisons to help him; but they said no, he had nothing to do but hold the place, and

ner of the United States of America to Europe, Asia, and Africa, who had been to the Club House to register their several titles and impoverish the bill of fare; and they told us to go over to the little variety store near the Hall of Justice and buy some kid gloves. They said they were elegant and very moderate in price. It seemed a stylish thing to go to the theater in kid gloves, and we acted upon

ght!" Yet I knew i

tly, but it was discou

ring kid gloves-but some gentlemen a

I made another effort and tore the glove from the base of the thumb into the palm of the hand-and trie

[A rent across the middle.] I can always tell when a gentleman understands putting on kid gloves. There is a grace about it that only comes with long practic

ot, vexed, confused, but still happy; but I hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing intere

glove that fits. No, never mind, ma'am, never mind;

ntly ironical; and when I looked back from the street, and she was laughing all to herself about something or other, I said to myself with withering sarcasm, "Oh, certainly

oys annoyed me. Fina

ow how to put on kid glo

said (to the mo

ell when a gentleman is use

quized aft

about it that only comes wi

glove like he was dragging a cat out of an ash hole by the

pose, but I don't. And if you go and tell any of those old gossips in

gloves, too, as I did. We threw all the purchases away together this morning. They were coarse, unsubstantial, freckled all over with broad yellow

wading into the sea to carry us ashor