At least half its pleasures and incidents come out of
inns; and of them the tourist can speak with much more truth and
vivacity than of historical recollections compiled out of
histories, or filched out of handbooks.
But to speak of the best
inn in a place needs no apology: that, at least, is useful
information. As every person intending to visit Gibraltar cannot
have seen the flea-bitten countenances of our companions, who fled
from their Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the morning
after our arrival, they may surely be thankful for being directed
to the best house of accommodation in one of the most unromantic,
uncomfortable, and prosaic of towns.
If one had a right to break the sacred confidence of the mahogany,
I could entertain you with many queer stories of Gibraltar life,
gathered from the lips of the gentlemen who enjoyed themselves
round the dingy tablecloth of the club-house coffee-room, richly
decorated with cold gravy and spilt beer. I heard there the very
names of the gentlemen who wrote the famous letters from the
"Warspite" regarding the French proceedings at Mogador; and met
several refugee Jews from that place, who said that they were much
more afraid of the Kabyles without the city than of the guns of the
French squadron, of which they seemed to make rather light. I
heard the last odds on the ensuing match between Captain Smith's b.
g. Bolter, and Captain Brown's ch.
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