much in the demeanour and appearance of these young men, for the greater part were quite young, which was highly interesting and agreeable.  Indeed, I believe it may be said of English officers in general, that in personal appearance, and in polished manners, they bear the palm from those of the same class over the world.  True it is, that the officers of the royal guard of Russia, especially of the three noble regiments styled the Priberjensky, Simeonsky, and Finlansky polks might fearlessly enter into competition in almost all points with the flower of the British army; but it must be remembered, that those regiments are officered by the choicest specimens of the Sclavonian nobility, young men selected expressly for the splendour of their persons, and for the superiority of their mental endowments; whilst, probably, amongst all the fair-haired Angle-Saxons youths whom I now saw gathered near me, there was not a single one of noble ancestry, nor of proud and haughty name; and certainly, so far from having been selected to flatter the pride and add to the pomp of a despot, they had been taken indiscriminately from a mass of ardent aspirants for military glory, and sent on their country’s service to a remote and unhealthy colony.  Nevertheless, they were such as their country might be proud of, for gallant boys they looked, with courage on their brows, beauty and health on their cheeks, and intelligence in their hazel eyes.

Who is he who now stops before the door without entering, and addresses a question to my host, who advances with a respectful salute?  He is no common man, or his appearance belies him strangely.  His dress is simple enough; a Spanish hat, with a peaked crown and broad shadowy brim—­the veritable sombrero—­jean pantaloons and blue hussar jacket;—­but how well that dress becomes one of the most noble-looking figures I ever beheld.  I gazed upon him with strange respect and admiration as he stood benignantly smiling and joking in good Spanish with an impudent rock rascal, who held in his hand a huge bogamante, or coarse carrion lobster, which he would fain have persuaded him to purchase.  He was almost gigantically tall, towering nearly three inches above the burly host himself, yet athletically symmetrical, and straight as the pine tree of Dovrefeld.  He must have counted eleven lustres, which cast an air of mature dignity over a countenance which seemed to have been chiseled by some Grecian sculptor, and yet his hair was black as the plume of the Norwegian raven, and so was the moustache which curled above his well-formed lip.  In the garb of Greece, and in the camp before Troy, I should have taken him for Agamemnon.  “Is that man a general?” said I to a short queer-looking personage, who sat by my side, intently studying a newspaper.  “That gentleman,” he whispered in a lisping accent, “is, sir, the Lieutenant-Governor of Gibraltar.”