Luna Benamor | Page 3

their
calves exposed to the air and with no other protection for the feet than
their loose, yellow slippers; their heads covered by the folds of their
turbans. They were Moors from Tangier who supplied the place with
poultry and vegetables, keeping their money in the embroidered leather
wallets that hung from their girdled waists. The Jews of Morocco,
dressed in oriental fashion with silk kirtle and an ecclesiastical calotte,
passed by leaning upon sticks, as if thus dragging along their bland,
timid obesity. The soldiers of the garrison,--tall, slender,
rosy-complexioned--made the ground echo with the heavy cadence of
their boots. Some were dressed in khaki, with the sobriety of the soldier
in the field; others wore the regular red jacket. White helmets, some
lined with yellow, alternated with the regulation caps; on the breasts of
the sergeants shone the red stripe; other soldiers carried in their armpits
the thin cane that is the emblem of authority. Above the collar of many
coats rose the extraordinarily thin British neck, high, giraffe-like, with
a pointed protuberance in front. Soon the further end of the street was
filled with white; an avalanche of snowy patches seemed to advance
with rhythmic step. It was the caps of the sailors. The cruisers in the

Mediterranean had given their men shore leave and the thoroughfare
was filled with ruddy, cleanshaven boys, with faces bronzed by the sun,
their chests almost bare within the blue collar, their trousers wide at the
bottom, swaying from side to side like an elephant's trunk, fellows with
small heads and childish features, with their huge hands hanging at the
ends of their arms as if the latter could hardly sustain their heavy bulk.
The groups from the fleet separated, disappearing into the various side
streets in search of a tavern. The policeman in the white helmet
followed with a resigned look, certain that he would have to meet some
of them later in a tussle, and beg the favor of the king when, at the
sound of the sunset gun, he would bring them back dead drunk to their
cruiser.
Mingling with these fighters were gypsies with their loose belts, their
long staffs and their dark faces; old and repulsive creatures, who no
sooner stopped before a shop than the owners became uneasy at the
mysterious hiding-places of their cloaks and skirts; Jews from the city,
too, with broad frocks and shining silk hats, dressed for the celebration
of one of their holidays; negroes from the English possessions; coppery
Hindus with drooping mustache and white trousers, so full and short
that they looked like aprons; Jewesses from Gibraltar, dressed in white
with all the correctness of the Englishwomen; old Jewesses from
Morocco, obese, puffed out, with a many-colored kerchief knotted
about their temples; black cassocks of Catholic priests, tight frocks of
Protestant priests, loose gowns of venerable rabbis, bent, with flowing
beards, exuding grime and sacred wisdom... And all this multifarious
world was enclosed in the limits of a fortified town, speaking many
tongues at the same time, passing without any transition in the course
of the conversation from English to a Spanish pronounced with the
strong Andalusian accent.
Aguirre wondered at the moving spectacle of Royal Street; at the
continuously renewed variety of its multitude. On the great boulevards
of Paris, after sitting in the same café for six days in succession, he
knew the majority of those who passed by on the sidewalk. They were
always the same. In Gibraltar, without leaving the restricted area of its
central street, he experienced surprises every day. The whole country

seemed to file by between its two rows of houses. Soon the street was
filled with bearskin caps worn by ruddy, green-eyed, flat-nosed persons.
It was a Russian invasion. There had just anchored in the harbor a
transatlantic liner that was bearing this cargo of human flesh to
America. They scattered throughout the place; they crowded the cafés
and the shops, and under their invading wave they blotted out the
normal population of Gibraltar. At two o'clock it had resumed its
regular aspect and there reappeared the helmets of the police, the
sailors' caps, the turbans of the Moors, the Jews and the Christians. The
liner was already at sea after having taken on its supply of coal; and
thus, in the course of a single day, there succeeded one another the
rapid and uproarious invasions of all the races of the continent, in this
city that might be called the gateway of Europe, by the inevitable
passage through which one part of the world communicates with the
Orient and the other with the Occident.
As the sun disappeared, the flash of a discharge gleamed from the top
of the mountain, and the boom of the sunset gun warned strangers
without a residence