fortifications just across the border, which became the workers' town of La Línea de la Concepción. The poor economy meant that Gibraltar's population barely changed between 1830 and 1880, but it was still relatively more prosperous than the severely impoverished south of Spain. As a consequence, La Línea's population doubled over the same period and then doubled again in the following 20 years. Visiting Gibraltar in the mid-19th century, the English writer Richard Ford wrote in his Handbook for Travellers in Spain that "the differences of nations and costumes are very curious: a motley masquerade is held in this halfway house between Europe, Asia, and Africa, where every man appears in his own dress and speaks his own language. Civilization and barbarism clash here indeed ... or the Rock, like Algeria, is a refuge for destitute scamps, and is the asylum for people of all nations who expatriate themselves for their country's good." He described the town's Main Street as "the antithesis of a Spanish town", lined with "innumerable pot–houses", which made it a "den of gin and intemperance; every thing and body is in motion; there is no quiet, no repose; all is hurry and scurry, for time is money and Mammon is the god of Gib, as the name is vulgarized ... The entire commerce of the Peninsula seems condensed into this microcosmus, where all creeds and nations meet, and most of them adepts at the one grand game of beggar my neighbour." Relations with Spain during the 19th century were generally amicable. Regular British soldiers were forbidden to cross the border but officers could cross freely into Spain, as could the inhabitants of Gibraltar, some of whom had second houses in the town of San Roque about away. The garrison introduced the very British activity of fox hunting in the form of the Royal Calpe Hunt, started in 1812, which saw British officers and local Spanish gentry pursuing foxes across the Campo de Gibraltar. A major bone of contention during this period was the issue of smuggling across the border. The problem arose after Spain imposed tariffs on foreign manufactured goods in a bid to protect Spain's own fledgling industrial enterprises. Tobacco was also heavily taxed, providing one of the government's principal sources of revenue. The inevitable result was that Gibraltar, where cheap tobacco and goods were readily available, became a centre of intensive smuggling activity. The