George Rowlands and Mr. Kent - Pascual Rose and Elias Natson
Messias and Manuel Ximenez - Griffith and Dumoulin
Arrival - The traveller who lands by the steamer . . . will be tormented by cads and touters, who clamorously canvass him to put up at their respective inns . . . No foreigner can reside on the Rock without some consul or householder becoming his surety and responsible for his conduct. These precautions are absolutely necessary, as this place can never be taken except by treason, and many are those who, under a species of cordial understanding, conceal a deadly arriére pensée of hatred.
Money - The English at Gibraltar have Anglicized Spanish moneys; the letters D, R, and Q. . . . mean dollars, duros, royals, reales, and quarts, quartos. The onza is called the doubloon, and the pesos fuertes “hard dollars:“ each is divided into 12 imaginary reales, andeach real into l6 quarts; besides this the English have coined 2 quarts and 1 quarts, i.e, half-pence and farthings, with the Queen's head and reverse a castle.
Obviously they also minted the half quart (1842 ) (See LINK)
Hotels - Club-house Hotel" is good and reasonable; rooms cool, large, and airy; very prudent travellers may agree about prices beforehand: “Griffith’s Hotel,” table d'hote, at 2a. 6d. “Dumoulin’s French Hotel,” "Fonda de Europa", cheap and airy: "Parker’s Hotel", Calla Real cheaper; Elias Natson there is a good guide. At “Griffith’s” is one Messias, a Jew (called Rafael in Spain), who is a capital guide both here and throughout Andalucia.
The People - Gibraltar is said to contain between 15,000 and 20,000 Inhab., exclusive of the military. In daytime it looks more peopled than it really is from the numbers of sailors on shore and Spaniards who go out at gun-fire. The differences of nations and costumes are very curious: a motley masquerade is held in this halfway house between Europe, Asia, and Africa, where every man appears in his own dress and speaks his own language. . .The out-of-doors dress of the females is a red cloak and hood edged with black velvet ofGenoese extraction.
Two Gibraltar ladies "talking to a moor of Barbary" ( 19th century )
Civilization and barbarism clash here indeed. The Cockney, newly imported in a week per steamer from London, is reading this ‘ Handbook’ While seated near a black date-merchant from the borders of the deserts of Timbuctoo, each staring at, and despising his nondescript neighbour.
The Rock is a Babel of languages, and “you don't understand us” is the order of most market-places. Of foreigners, the Jews, who are always out of doors, are the dirtiest; the Moors the cleanest and best behaved; the Ronda smuggler the most picturesque.
The Jews - The Jewish synagogue is noisy and curious; the females do not attend, as it is a moot point with their Rabbins whether they have souls, to allow that would bring them too near equality with the male sex ; nor do the men pray for them— at all events, they only thank God in their orations that they are not women, who, be it said, as far as bodies and beauty go, are often angels readymade.
A rare complement - other visitors were far less complimentary (See LINK)
The blood of Jews especially is thought to be both sable and to stink; and it has been said that the Jews were called Putos, quia putant; certainly, as at Gibraltar, an unsavoury odour seems gentilitious in the Hebrew . . .
Smuggling- (See LINK) The encouragement afforded to the manufacture and smuggling of cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing source of ill blood and ill will between the Spanish and English governments. This most serious evil is contrary to treaties, injurious to Spain and England alike, and is beneficial only to aliens of the worst character who form the real plague and sore of the Rock.
. . Almeria is a chief town of the district, and residence of petty authorities, who -se dice - get wealthy by encouraging smuggling from Gibraltar.The traveller near Gibraltar will see enough of the Contrabandista Rondeño and a fine fellow he is: a cigar and a bota of wine open his heart at the Venta fire-side, and he likes and trusts an Englishman, not that he won't rob him if in want of cash. The Contrabandista of Ronda is one of the most picturesque of his numerous class in a locality where “everybody smuggles."
Gibraltar from the mountains of Ronda ( 1859 - Unknown )
Religion - The “Rock,” in religious toleration, or rather indifference, is again the antithesis of Spain. Here all creeds are free, and all agree in exclusive money-worship.
The Town - The British houses, the rent of which is very dear, are built on the stuffy Wapping principle, with a Genoese exterior; all is brick and plaster and wood-work, cribbed and confined, and filled with curtains and carpets, on purpose to breed vermin and fever in this semi-African hotbed; calculated to let in the enemy, heat, so that Nelson, who dearly as he loved the “ old Rock,” hoped that all the small houses at its back might be burnt ; “perhaps if half the town went with them it would be better.”
. . . Gibraltar is very dear, especially house-rent, wages and labour of all kinds. It is a dull place of residence to those who are neither merchants nor military.
The “ Main, or Water-port Street,” the aorta of Gibraltar, is the antithesis of a Spanish town. Lions and Britannias dangle over innumerable pot-houses, the foreign names of whose proprietors combine strangely with the Queen’s English - “Manuel Ximenez- lodgings and neat liquors."
Selling Asses Milk in Gibraltar - no Queen's English here though ( 1830s - William Mein Smith ) (See LINK)
. . .all is hurry and scurry, for time is money, and Mammon is the god of Gib. . .The entire commerce of the Peninsula seems condensed into this microcosmus, where all creeds and nations meet, and most of them adepts at the one grand game of beggar my neighbour.
The principal square is the “Commercial.” Here are situated the best hotels and the “Public Exchange, "a mean building, decorated with a bust of Gen. Don. Here are a library and newspapers, and s club, to which travellers, especially mercantile, are readily admitted. In this square, during the day, sales by auction take place; the whole scene in the open air, combined with the variety of costume, is truly peculiar. .
Ragged Staff - To the right. of the gardens are “Ragged-staff Stairs” (the ragged staff (see LINK) was one of the badges of Burgundian Charles V). . . .
South Barracks is not a Spanish building. It was built on the orders of James Gabriel Montresor (see LINK) in 1747.Rosia (see LINK) . . Near this fresh, wind-blown spot, which is sometimes from 5 to 6 degrees cooler than the town, is the Naval Hospital, and fine Spanish buildings called the “South Barracks and Pavilion.”
Local man and a young girl dressed in typical red and black Gibraltarian costume with South Barracks in the background ( 1844 - George Lothian Hall ) (See LINK)
Europa Flats - The “Flats” at Europa Point are an open space used for manoeuvres and recreation. Gen. Don wished to level and plant it, but was prevented by some engineering wiseacres, who thought level ground, would facilitate the advance of an enemy!
Catalan Bay - This (east) side is an entire contrast to the other: all here is solitudeand inaccessibility, and Nature has reared her own impregnable bastions: an excursion round in a boat should be made to Catalan Bay. (See LINK)
Nuns' Well - Among the many caverns of this Calpe or caved mountain, is that called "Beefsteak Cave,” which lies above the flats of Europa. Nomenclature assuredly marks national character. . of . . Beef fed Briton than of thr hungry, religious, water-drinking Spaniard whose artillery tank at Brewer's barracks below is still called Nuns' Well". (See LINK )
Rock Roads - Descending amid zigzag, admirably engineered roads, chiefly the work of Gen. Boyd.
Some of the upper Rock's zigzag roads ( 1830s - J.M.Van Braam - Detail )
The Hospital - There is an excellent civil hospital here, arranged in 1815 by Gen. Don, (see LINK) in which Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews have their wards separate, like their creeds.
El Hacho and the Senda del Pastor (see LINK) - The signal-house, under the Spanish rule, was called el Hacho, the torch, because here were lighted the beacons in case of danger: near it is la Silleta, the little chair, to which formerly a narrow path led from Catalan Bay: it was destroyed to prevent surprises, as Gibraltar was once nearly retaken by a party of Spaniards, who crept up during the night by this Senda del Pastor. . .
O'Hara's Folly - The S. point of the Rock is called O'Hara’s (see LINK) Tower or Folly, having been built by that sapient officer to watch the movements of the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, when there was one; it was soon afterwards struck by lightning, which completed its inutility.
O'Hara's Folly ( 1824 - James Bucknall-Estcourt ) (See LINK)
The Law - is administered here according to the rules . . of Westminster Hall, and those technicalities which were meant for the protection of the innocent . . . have become the scapeholes of the worst of offenders. It might be apprehended that a code and practice . . . for a free and intelligent people would not work well in a garrison with a mongrel, motley, dangerous population, bred and born in despotism, accustomed to the summary bowstring of the Kaid, or the cuatro tiros of the Spaniards . . . Gibraltar is soon seen. Nowhere does the idler sooner get bored. These ill-contrived tenements are fit only for salamanders and “scorpions", as those born on the Rock are called.
The Monkeys - are the oldest and wisest denizens of the Rock . . . The real lions of “Gib.” are the apes, los monos . . They haunt the highest points, and are active as the chamois; like delicate dandies, they are seldom seen except when a Levanter . . . affecting their nerves, drives them to the west end.These exquisites have no tails, and are very harmless. There is generally one, a larger and the most respectable, who takes the command, and is called the “town-major.” These monkeys rob the gardens when they can. . .
The text might be correct but the monkey is a baboon from elsewhere
Carteia - Mr. Kent, of the port-office at Gibraltar, formed a Carteian museum, consisting of medals, pottery, glass, &c.
The Fever - The Gibraltar fever, (see LINK) about which doctors have disagreed so much, the patients dying in the meanwhile, como chinches, is most probably endemic; it is nurtured in Hebrew dirt, fed by want of circulation of air and offensive sewers at low tide. It is called into fatal activity by some autumnal atmospherical peculiarity. The average visitation is about every twelve years. The quarantine regulations . . are severe: they are under the control of the captain of the Port.
The Free Port - Gibraltar has one great comfort. There are no custom-houses, no odious searchings of luggage; almost everything is alike free to be imported or exported. . . . Gibraltar was made a free port by Queen Anne; and the sooner some change is made the better, for the “Rock," like Algeria, is a refuge for destitute scamps, and is the asylum of people of all nations who expatriate themselves for their country's good.
The Calpe Hunt - For fox-hounds, the “Calpe Hunt” (see LINK) have been kept ever since 1817, when started by Adm. Fleming. Foxes are rather too plentiful, as Don Celestino Cobos, the owner of the first Venta cover, is a great preserver; and since the hunt gave him a silver cup, a vulpicide is unheard of. The best “meets ” are “ first and second Ventas,” Pine Wood, Malaga Road, and Duke of Kent's farm. (See LINK)
The admiral's name was actually Fleeming,
Hon. C. Elphinstone Fleeming,
Other notes from the HandbookGibraltar was a portion of England herself
Gibraltar was where the creature comforts and good medical advice of Old England abounded
Gibraltar's importance, as a depot for coal, had increased since steam navigation.
The publisher of the 'Handbook 'had agents in Gibraltar run by George Roswell from whom the book could be bought.
Rowswell and Bartolots were the best booksellers on the Rock.
The sea trip from Southampton to Gibraltar took around six days.
There was Daily communication by steamer from Malaga which took 5 or 6 hours.
Pascual Rose (see LINK) at the Madrid (in Seville), a native of Gibraltar, spoke five languages, was a good cook and a capital servant.