As we tramped past these endless rows of cannon, it occurred to me that their simultaneous discharge must be very trying to the nerves of the artilleryman (if he has any nerves), as the concussion against the walls of rock is much greater than if they were fired in the open air, and I asked my guide if he did not dread it? He confessed that he did; but added, like the plucky soldier that he was: "We've got to stand up to it!"
These galleries are all on the northern side of the Rock, which, as it is very precipitous, hardly needs such a defence. But it is the side which looks toward Spain, and is intended to command any advance against the fortress from the land. Keeping in mind the general shape of the Rock as that of a lion, this is the Lion's head, and as I looked up at it afterward from the Neutral Ground, I could but imagine these open port-holes, with the savage-looking guns peering out of them, to be the lion's teeth, and thought what terror would be thrown into a camp of besiegers if the monster should once open those ponderous jaws and shake the hills with his tremendous roar.
It is not often that this roar is heard; but there is one day in the year when it culminates, when the British Lion roars the loudest. It is the Queen's birthday, when the Rock Gun, mounted on the highest point of the Rock, 1,400 feet in air, gives the signal; which is immediately caught up by the galleries below, one after the other; and the batteries along the sea answer to those from the mountain side, until the mighty reverberations not only sweep round the bay, but across the Mediterranean, and far along the African shores. Nothing like this is seen or heard in any other part of the world. The only parallel to it is in the magnificent phenomena of nature, as in a storm in the Alps, when
"Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps that call to her aloud."
This is magnificent: and yet I trust my military friends will not despise my sober tastes if I confess that this "roar," if kept up for any length of time, would greatly disturb the meditations of a quiet traveller like myself. Indeed it would be a serious objection to living in Gibraltar that I should be compelled to endure the cannonading, which, at certain times of the year, makes the rocks echo with a deafening sound. I hate noise, and especially the noise of sharp explosions. I have always been of Falstaff's opinion, that
"But for those vile guns I would be a soldier."
But here the "vile guns" are everywhere, and though they may be quiet for a time, it is only to break out afterward and make themselves heard in a way that cannot but be understood.