Gibraltar

CHAPTER V.
PARADE ON THE ALAMEDA. PRESENTATION OF COLORS TO THE SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT

The garrison of Gibraltar, in time of peace, numbers five or six thousand men, made up chiefly of regiments brought home from foreign service, that are stationed here for a few months, or it may be a year or two, not merely to perform garrison duty, but as a place of rest to recover strength for fresh campaigns, from which they can be ordered to any part of the Mediterranean or to India. While here they are kept under constant drill, yet not in such bodies as to make a grand military display, for there is no parade ground large enough for the purpose. Gibraltar has no Champ de Mars on which all the regiments can be brought into the field, and go through with the evolutions of an army. If the whole garrison is to be put under arms, it must be marched out of the gates to the North Front, adjoining the Neutral Ground, that it may have room for its military manœuvres. When our countryman General Crawford, who commanded the Pennsylvania Reserves at the Battle of Gettysburg, was here a few years since, the Governor, Sir Fenwick Williams, gave him a review of four thousand men. But that was a mark of respect to a distinguished military visitor, and presented a sight rarely witnessed by the ordinary traveller. It was therefore a piece of good fortune to have an opportunity to see, though on a smaller scale, the splendid bearing of the trained soldiers of the British Army. One morning our Consul (always thoughtful of what might contribute to my pleasure) sent me word that there was to be a parade of one of the regiments of the garrison for the purpose of receiving new colors from the hands of the Governor. Hastening to the Alameda, (which is the only open space within the walls at once large enough and level enough even for a single regiment,) I found it already in position, the long scarlet lines forming three sides of a hollow square. Joining a group of spectators on the side that was open, we waited the arrival of the Governor, an interval well employed in some inquiries as to the corps that was to receive the honors of the day.

"What did you tell me was the name of this Regiment?" "The South Staffordshire!" But that is merely the name of a county in England, which conveys no meaning to an American. And yet the name caught my ear as one that I had heard before. "Was not this one of the Regiments that served lately in the Soudan?" It was indeed the same, and I at once knew more of it than I had supposed. As I had been twice in Egypt, I was greatly interested in the expedition up the Nile for the relief of Khartoum and the rescue of General Gordon, and had followed its progress in the English papers, where, along with the Black Watch and other famous troops, I had seen frequent mention of the South Staffordshire Regiment. As the expedition was for months the leading feature of the London illustrated papers, they were filled with pictures of the troops, engaged in every kind of service, sometimes looking more like sailors than soldiers, from which, however, they were ready, at the first alarm, to fall into ranks and march to battle. Many of the comrades who sailed from England with them left their bones on the banks of the Nile.

With this recent history in mind, I could not look in the faces of the brave men who had made all these marches, and endured these fatigues, and fought these battles, without my heart beating fast. It beat faster still when I learned that the campaign in Egypt was only the last of a long series of campaigns, reaching over not only many years, but almost two centuries! The history of this regiment is worth the telling, if it were only to show of what stuff the British Army is made, and how the traditions of a particular corps, passing down from sire to son, remain its perpetual glory and inspiration.

The South Staffordshire Regiment is one of the oldest in the English Army, having been organized in the reign of Queen Anne, when the great Marlborough led her troops to foreign wars. But it does not appear to have fought under Marlborough, having been early transferred to the Western Hemisphere. After four years' service at home it was sent to the West Indies, where it remained nearly sixty years, its losses by death being made good by fresh recruits from England, so that its organization was kept intact. Returning home in 1765, it was stationed in Ireland till the cloud began to darken over the American Colonies, when it was one of the first corps despatched across the Atlantic. As an American, I could not but feel the respect due to a brave enemy on learning that this very regiment that I saw before me had fought at Bunker Hill! From Boston it was ordered to New York, where it remained till the close of the war. No doubt it often paraded on the Battery, as to-day it parades on the Alameda. After the war it was stationed several years in Nova Scotia.

From that time it has had a full century of glory, serving now in the West Indies, and now at the Cape of Good Hope, and then coming back across the Atlantic to the River Plate in South America, where it distinguished itself at the storming and capture of Monte Video, and afterward fought at Buenos Ayres. But the "storm centre" in the opening nineteenth century was to be, not in America, North or South, nor in Africa, but in Europe, in the wars of Napoleon. This regiment was with Sir John Moore when he fell at Corunna, and afterward followed the Iron Duke through Spain, fighting in the great battle of Salamanca, and later with Sir Thomas Graham at Vittoria, and in the siege and storming of San Sebastian. It was part of the army that crossed the Bidassoa, and made the campaign of 1813-14 in the South of France. After the fall of Napoleon it returned home, but on his return from Elba was immediately ordered back to the Continent, and arrived at Ostend, too late to take part in the Battle of Waterloo, but joined the army and marched with it to Paris.

When the great disturber of the peace of the Continent was sent to St. Helena, Europe had a long rest from war; but there was trouble in other parts of the world, and in 1819 the regiment was again at the Cape of Good Hope, fighting the Kaffirs; from which it went to India, and thence to Burmah, where it served in the war of 1824-26. This is the war which has been made familiar to American readers in the Life of the Missionary Judson, who was thrown into prison at Ava, (as the King made no distinction between Englishmen and Americans), confined in a dungeon, and chained to the vilest malefactors, in constant danger of death, till the advance of the British army up the Irrawaddi threw the tyrant into a panic of terror, when he sent for his prisoner to go to the British camp and make terms with the conquerors. England made peace, but the regiment was half destroyed, having lost in Burmah eleven officers and five hundred men.

The ten years of peace that followed were spent in Bengal. When at last the regiment was called home, it was stationed for a few years in the Ionian Islands, in Jamaica, Honduras, and Nova Scotia. Then came the Russian War, when it was sent to Turkey, and fought at the Alma and Inkerman, and through the long siege of Sebastopol. Only a single year of peace followed, and it was again ordered to India, where the outbreak of the mutiny threatened the loss of the Indian Empire, and by forced marches reached Cawnpore in time to defeat the Sepoy army; from which it marched to Lucknow, where it was part of the fiery host that stormed the Kaiser-Bagh, where it suffered fearful loss, but the siege was raised and Lucknow delivered; after which, in a campaign in Oude, it helped to stamp out the mutiny.

Its last campaign was in Egypt, where it went up the Nile as a part of the River Column, hauling its boats over the cataracts, and was the first regiment that reached Korti. From this point it kept along the course of the river toward Berber (while another column, mounted on camels, made the march across the desert), and with the Black Watch bore the brunt of the fighting in the battle of Kirbekan, in which the commander of the column and the colonel of the regiment both fell.²

Such is the story of a hundred and fifty years. Of the hundred and eighty-four years that the Regiment has been in existence, it has spent a hundred and thirty-four – all but fifty – in foreign service, in which it has fought in thirty-eight battles, and has left the bones of its dead in every quarter of the globe. Was there ever a Roman legion that could show a longer record of war and of glory?

And now this British legion, with a history antedating the possession of Gibraltar itself, (for it was organized in 1702, two years before the Rock was captured from Spain,) had been brought back to this historic ground, bringing with it its old battle-flags, that had floated on so many fields, which, worn by time and torn by shot and shell, it was now to surrender, to be taken back to England and hung in the oldest church in Staffordshire as the proud memorials of its glory, while it was to receive new colors, to be borne in future wars. The rents in its ranks had been filled by new recruits, so that it stood full a thousand strong, its burnished arms glistening as if those who bore them had never been in the heat of battle. In the hollow square in which it was drawn up were its mounted officers, waiting the arrival of the Governor, who presently rode upon the ground, with Major-General Walker, the Commander of the Infantry Brigade, at his side; followed by other officers, who took position in the rear, according to their rank. The band struck up "God save the Queen," and the troops, wheeling into column, began the "march past," moving with such firm and even tread that it seemed as if the regiment had but one body and one soul. After a series of evolutions it was again formed in a square, for a ceremony that was half military and half religious, for in such pageants the Church of England always lends its presence to the scene. I had read of military mass in the Russian army, when the troops drawn up in battle array, fall upon their knees, while the Czar, prostrating himself, prays apparently with the utmost devotion for the blessing of Almighty God upon the Russian arms! Something of the same effect was produced here, when the Bishop of Gibraltar in his robes came forward with his assistant clergy. At once the band ceased; the troops stood silent and reverent. The silence was first broken by the singing of a Hymn, whose rugged verse had a strange effect, as given by the Regimental Choir. I leave to my readers to imagine the power of these martial lines sung by those stentorian voices:

 
When Israel's Chief in days of yore,
Thy banner, Lord, flung out,
Old Kishon's tide ran red with gore,
Dire was the Pagan rout.
 
 
And later, when the Roman's eye
Turned upward in despair,
The Cross, that flickered in the sky,
Made answer to his prayer.
 
 
So, Lord, to us Thy suppliants now,
Bend Thou a gracious ear,
And mark, and register the vow
We make before Thee here.
 
 
Through fire and steel, 'mid weal or woe,
Unwavering and in faith,
Where'er these sacred banners go,
We'll follow, to the death.
 
 
We'll follow, strengthened by the might
That comes of trust in Thee,
And if we conquer in the fight,
Thine shall the glory be:
 
 
Or if Thy wisdom wing the ball,
And life or limb be riven,
The Cross we gaze on as we fall
Shall point the way to Heaven.
 

When this song of battle died away, the voice of the Bishop was heard in a prayer prepared for the occasion. Some may criticise it as implying that the God of Battles must always be on the side of England. But such is the character of all prayers offered in time of war. Making this allowance, it seems as if the feeling of the hour could not be more devoutly expressed than in the following:

Almighty and most merciful Father, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, we come before Thee with a deep sense of Thine exceeding Majesty and our own unworthiness, praying Thee to shed upon us the light of Thy countenance, and to hallow and sanctify the work in which we are this day engaged.

We beseech Thee to forward with Thy blessing, the presentation to this Regiment of the Colors which are henceforth to be carried in its ranks; and with all lowliness and humility of spirit, we presume to consecrate the same in Thy great name, to the cause of peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety. We humbly pray that the time may come when the sound of War shall cease to be heard in the world; but forasmuch as to our mortal vision that blessed consummation seems still far distant, we beseech Thee so to order the course of events that these colors shall be unfurled in the face of an enemy only for a righteous cause. And in that dark hour may stain and disgrace fall upon them never; but being borne aloft as emblems of loyalty and truth, may the brave who gather round them go forward conquering for the right, and maintaining, as becomes them, the honor of the British Crown, the purity of our most holy faith, the majesty of our laws, and the influence of our free and happy constitution. Finally, we pray that Thy servants here present, not forgetful of Thine exceeding mercies vouchsafed to their regiment in times gone by, and that all the forces of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, wherever stationed and however employed, may labor through Thy grace to maintain a conscience void of offence towards Thee and towards man, always remembering that of soldier and of civilian the same account shall be taken, and that he is best prepared to do his duty, and to meet death, let it come in what form it may, who in the integrity of a pure heart is able to look to Thee as a God reconciled to him through the blood of the Atonement. Grant this, O Lord, for Thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

Then followed the usual prayer for the Queen:

O Lord, our Heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from Thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth, most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, and so replenish her with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit that she may always incline to Thy will and walk in Thy way; endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant her in health and wealth long to live; strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies; and finally, after this life, she may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore! Amen.

The service ended, the Governor, dismounting from his horse, took the place of the Bishop in a service which had a sacred as well as patriotic character. Two officers, the youngest of the Regiment, advancing, surrendered the old flags, which had been carried for so many years and through so many wars, and then each bending on one knee, received from his hands the new colors which were to have a like glorious history. As they rose from their knees, the Governor remounted his horse, and from the saddle delivered an address as full of patriotic sentiment, of loyalty to the Queen and country, and as spirit-stirring to the brave men before him, as if they were to be summoned to immediate battle. With that he turned and galloped off the ground, while the Regiment unfurling its new standards, with drums beating and band playing, marched proudly away.

As it wound up the height, the long scarlet line had a most picturesque effect. It has been objected to these brilliant uniforms that they make the soldiers too conspicuous a mark for the sharpshooters of the enemy. But, however it may be in war, nothing can be finer on parade. Our modern architects and decorators, who attach so much importance to color, and insist that everything, from cottage to castle, should be "picked out in red," would have been in ecstasies at the colors which that day gleamed among the rocks and trees of Gibraltar.

Indeed, if you should happen to be sauntering on the Alameda just at evening, as the sunset-gun is fired, and should look upward to see the smoke curling away, you might see above it a gathering of black clouds – the sure sign of the coming of the terrible East wind known as the "Levanter"; and if at the same moment the afterglow of the dying day should touch a group of soldiers standing on the mountain's crest (where colors could be clearly distinguished even if figures were confused), it might seem as if that last gleam under the shadow of the clouds were itself the red cross of England soaring against a dark and stormy sky.

This was the brilliant side of war: pity that there should be another side! But the next day, walking near the barracks, I met a company with reversed arms bearing the body of a comrade to the grave. There was no funeral pomp, no waving plumes nor roll of muffled drums: for it was only a common soldier, who might have fallen on any field, and be buried where he fell, with not a stone to mark his resting-place. But for all that, he may have been a true hero; for it is such as he, the unknown brave, who have fought all the battles and gained all the victories of the world.

Turning from this scene, I thought how hard was the fate of the English soldier: to be an exile from the land of his birth, "a man without a country"; who may be ordered to any part of the world (for such is the stern necessity, if men are to defend "an Empire on which the sun never sets"); serving in many lands, yet with a home in none; to sleep at last in a nameless grave! Such has been the fate of many of that gallant regiment which I saw marching so proudly yesterday. Their next campaign may be in Central Asia, fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, amid the snows of the Himalayas. If so, I fear it may be said of them with sad, prophetic truth, as they go into battle:

 
"Ah! few shall part where many meet;
The snow shall be their winding-sheet;
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre."
 

CHAPTER VI.
SOCIETY IN GIBRALTAR

The best thing that I find in any place is the men that are in it. Strong walls and high towers are grand, but after a while they oppress me by their very massiveness, unless animated by a living presence. Even the great guns, those huge monsters that frown over the ramparts, would lose their majesty and terror, if there were not brave men behind them. And so, after I had surveyed Gibraltar from every point of land and sea; after I had been round about it, and marked well its towers and its bulwarks; to complete the enjoyment I had but one wish – to sit down in some quiet nook and talk it all over.

There is no man in the world whom I respect more than an old soldier. He is the embodiment of courage and of all manly qualities, and he has given his life to his country. And if he bears in his person the scars of honorable wounds, I look up to him with a feeling of veneration. Of such characters no place has more than Gibraltar, which perhaps may be considered the centre of the military life of England. True, the movements of the Army are directed by orders from the Horse Guards in London. But here the military feature is the predominant, if not the exclusive, one; while in London a few thousand troops would be lost in a city of five millions of inhabitants. Here the outward and visible sign is ever before you: regiments whose names are historical, are always coming and going; and if you are interested in the history of modern wars, (as who can fail to be, since it is a part of the history of our times?) you may not only read about them in the Garrison Library, but see the very men that have fought in them. Here is a column coming up the street! I look at its colors, and read the name of a regiment already familiar through the English papers; that has shown the national pluck and endurance in penetrating an African forest or an Indian jungle, or in climbing the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas to settle accounts with the Emir of Cabul. There must be strange meetings of old comrades here, as well as new companionships formed between those who have fought under the same royal standard, though in different parts of the world. A regiment recalled from Halifax is quartered near another just returned from Natal or the Cape of Good Hope; while troops from Hong Kong, or that have been up the Irrawaddi to take part in the late war in Upper Burmah, can exchange experiences with their brother soldiers from the other side of the globe. Almost all the regiments collected here have figured in distant campaigns, and the officers that ride at their head are the very ones that led them to victory. To a heart that is not so dead but that it can still be stirred by deeds of daring, there is nothing more thrilling than to sit under the guns of the greatest fortress in the world, and listen to the story as it comes from the lips of those who were actors in the scenes.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that the society of Gibraltar is confined to men. The home instincts are strong in English breasts; and wherever they go they carry their household gods with them. In my wanderings about the world, it has been my fortune to visit portions of the British Empire ten thousand miles away from the mother country; yet in every community there was an English stamp, a family likeness to the old island home. Hence it is that in the most remote colony there are the elements of a good society. Whatever country the English may enter, even if it be in the Antipodes, as soon as they have taken root and become established they send back to England for their wives and daughters, that they may renew the happy life that they have lived before, so that the traveller who penetrates the interior of Australia, of New Zealand, or Van Dieman's Land, is surprised to find, even "in the bush," the refinement of an English home.

This instinct is not lost, even when they are in camps or barracks. If you visit a "cantonment" in Upper India, you will find the officers with their families about them. The brave-hearted English women "follow the drum" to the ends of the earth; and I have sometimes thought that their husbands and brothers owed part of their indomitable resolution to the inspiration of their wives and sisters.

It is this feature of garrison life, this union of "fair women and brave men," which gives such a charm to the society of Gibraltar – a union which is more complete here than in most garrison towns, because the troops stay longer, and there is more opportunity for that home-life which strangers would hardly believe to exist. Most travellers see nothing of it. Indeed it is probable that they hardly think of Gibraltar as having any home-life, since its population is always on the come and go; living here only as in a camp, and to-morrow

 
"Folding its tents like the Arabs,
And silently stealing away."
 

This is partly true. Soldiers of course are subject to orders, and the necessities of war may cause them to be embarked at an hour's notice. But in time of peace they may remain longer undisturbed. Regiments which have done hard service in India are sometimes left here to recruit even for years, which gives their officers opportunity to bring their families, whose presence makes Gibraltar seem like a part of England itself, as if it were no farther away than the Isle of Wight. This it is which makes life here quite other than being imprisoned in a fortress. I may perhaps give some glimpses of these interiors (without publicity to what is private and sacred), which I depict simply that I may do justice to a place to which I came as a stranger, and from which I depart as a friend.

Just before I left America, I was present at a breakfast given to M. de Lesseps on his visit to America to attend the inauguration of Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty. As I sat opposite the "grand Français," I turned the conversation to Spain, to which I was going, and where I knew that he had spent many years. He took up the subject with all his natural fire, and spoke of the country and the people in a way to add to my enthusiasm. Next to him sat Chief Justice Daly, who kindled at the mention of Spain, and almost "raved" (if a learned Judge ever "raves") about Spanish cathedrals. He had continued his journey to the Pillars of Hercules, and said that "in all his travels he had never spent a month with more pleasure than in Gibraltar." He had come with letters to the Governor, Lord Napier of Magdala, which at once opened all doors to him. Wishing to smooth my path in the same way, the English Minister at Madrid, who had shown me so much courtesy there, gave me a letter to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Gilford, who received me with the greatest kindness, and took me in at once to the Governor, who was equally cordial in his welcome.

The position of Governor of Gibraltar is one of such distinction as to be greatly coveted by officers in the English army. It is always bestowed on one of high rank, and generally on some old soldier who has distinguished himself in the field. Among the late Governors was Sir Fenwick Williams, who, with only a garrison of Turks, under the command of four or five English officers, defended Kars, the capital of Armenia, in 1855, repelling an assault by the Russians when they endeavored to take it by storm, and yielding at last only to famine; and Lord Napier of Magdala, who, born in Ceylon, spent the earlier part of his military life in India, where he fought in the Great Mutiny, and distinguished himself at Lucknow. Ten years later he led an English army (though composed largely of Indian troops, with the Oriental accompaniment of guns and baggage-trains carried on the backs of camels and elephants) into Abyssinia, and took the capital in an assault in which King John was slain, and the missionaries and others, whom he had long held as prisoners and captives, were rescued. He was afterward commander-in-chief of the forces in India, and, when he retired from that, no position was thought more worthy of his rank and services than that of Governor of Gibraltar, a fit termination to his long and honored career.

The present Governor is a worthy successor to this line of distinguished men. Sir Arthur Hardinge is the son of Lord Hardinge, who commanded the army in India a generation ago. Brought up as it were in a camp, he was bred as a soldier, and when little more than a boy accompanied his father to the wars, serving as aide-de-camp through the Sutlej campaign in 1845-46, and was in the thick of the fight in some hard-fought battles, in one of which, at Ferozeshah, he had a horse shot under him. When the Crimean War broke out he was ordered to the field, and served in the campaign of 1854-55, being at the Alma and at Inkerman, and remaining to the close of the siege of Sebastopol. Here he had rapid promotion, besides receiving numerous decorations from the Turkish Government, and being made Knight of the Legion of Honor. Returning to England, he seems to have been a favorite at court and at the Horse Guards, being made Knight Commander of the Bath, honorary Colonel of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and Extra Equerry to the Queen, his honors culminating in his present high position of Governor and Commander-in-chief of Gibraltar.

The politeness of the Governor did not end with his first welcome: it was followed by an invitation to his New Year's Reception. It was but a few weeks since he had taken office; and, wishing to do a courtesy to the citizens of Gibraltar as well as to the officers of the garrison, both were included in the invitation. The Government House was the one place where all – soldiers and civilians – could meet on common ground, and form the acquaintance, and cultivate the friendly feeling, so important to the happiness of a community shut up within the limits of a fortress. Although I was a stranger, the Consul desired me to attend, as it would give me the opportunity to see in a familiar way the leading men of Gibraltar, civil and military, and further, as, owing to the recent death of his son, he could not be present nor any of his family, so that I should be the only representative of our country.

It was indeed a notable occasion. The Government House is an old Convent, which still retains its ancient and venerable look, though the flag floating over it, and the sentry marching up and down before the door, tell that it is now the seat of English power. To-night it took on its most festive appearance, entrance and stairway being hung with flags, embowered in palms, and wreathed with vines and ferns and flowers; and when the officers appeared in their uniforms, and the military band filled the place with stirring music, it was a brilliant scene.

The gathering was in a large hall, part of which was turned to a purpose which to some must have seemed strangely incongruous with the sacred associations of the place: for in the old Spanish days this was a Convent of the Franciscan Friars, who, if they ever revisit the place of their former habitation, must have been shocked to find their chapel turned into a place for music and dancing, and to hear the "sound of revelry by night," where they were wont to say midnight mass, and to offer prayers for the quick and dead!

While this was going on in one part of the hall, at the other end the Governor sat on a dais, quietly enjoying the meeting of old friends and the making of new ones. It was my good fortune to be one of the group, which gave me the best possible opportunity to see the society of Gibraltar: for here it was all gathered under one roof. Of course it was chiefly military. There was a brilliant array of officers – generals, colonels, and majors; while in still larger number were captains and lieutenants, in their gay uniforms, who, if they did not exactly realize my idea of