the poetry of her envy-disarming decay, fallen from her high estate, the dignity of a dethroned monarch, borne with unrepining self-respect, the last consolation of the innately noble, which no adversity can take away; here let the lover of art feed his eyes with the mighty masterpieces of Italian art, when Raphael and Titian strove to decorate the palaces of Charles, the great emperor of the age of Leo X., or with the living nature of Velazquez and Murillo, whose paintings are truly to be seen in Spain alone; here let the artist sketch the lowly mosque of the Moor, the lofty cathedral of the Christian, in which God is worshipped in a manner as nearly befitting His glory as the power and wealth of finite man can reach; art and nature here offer subjects, from the feudal castle, the vasty Escorial, the rock-built alcazar of imperial Toledo, the sunny towers of stately Seville, to the eternal snows and lovely vega of Granada: let the geologist clamber

over mountains of marble, and metal-pregnant sierras, let the botanist cull from the wild hothouse of nature plants unknown, unnumbered, matchless in colour, and breathing the aroma of the sweet south; let all, learned or unlearned, listen to the song, the guitar, the Castanet; let all mingle with the gay, good-humoured, temperate peasantry, the finest in the world, free, manly, and independent, yet courteous and respectful; let all live with the noble, dignified, high-bred, self-respecting Spaniard; let all share in their easy, courteous society; let all admire their dark-eyed women, so frank and natural, to whom the voice of all ages and nations has conceded the palm of attraction, to whom Venus has bequeathed her magic girdle of grace and fascination; let all—sed ohe! jam satis—enough for starting on this expedition, where, as Don Quixote said, there are opportunities for what are called adventures elbow deep.

The following account of the rivers of Spain would do credit to the pen of Robertson:—

‘There are six great rivers in Spain,—the arteries which run between the seven mountain chains, the vertebras of the geological skeleton.  These six watersheds are each intersected in their extent by others on a minor scale, by valleys and indentations, in each of which runs its own stream.  Thus the rains and melted snows are all collected in an infinity of ramifications, and carried by these tributary conduits into one of the six main trunks, or great rivers: all these,

with the exception of the Ebro, empty themselves into the Atlantic.  The Duero and Tagus, unfortunately for Spain, disembogue in Portugal, thus becoming a portion of a foreign dominion exactly where their commercial importance is the greatest.  Philip II. saw the true value of the possession of Portugal, which rounded and consolidated Spain, and insured to her the possession of these valuable outlets of internal produce, and inlets for external commerce.  Portugal annexed to Spain gave more real power to his throne than the dominion of entire continents across the Atlantic.  The Miño, which is the shortest of these rivers, runs through a bosom of fertility.  The Tajo, Tagus, which the fancy of poets has sanded with gold and embanked with roses, tracks much of its dreary way through rocks and comparative barrenness.  The Guadiana creeps through lonely Estremadura, infecting the low plains with miasma.  The Guadalquivir eats out its deep banks amid the sunny olive-clad regions of Andalucia, as the Ebro divides the levels of Arragon.  Spain abounds with brackish streams, Salados, and with salt-mines, or saline deposits, after the evaporation of the sea-waters.  The central soil is strongly impregnated with saltpetre: always arid, it every day is becoming more so, from the singular antipathy which the inhabitants of the interior have against trees.  There is nothing to check the power of evaporation, no shelter to protect or preserve moisture.  The soil becomes more

and more baked and calcined; in some parts it has almost ceased to be available for cultivation: another serious evil, which arises from want of plantations, is, that the slopes of hills are everywhere liable to constant denudation of soil after heavy rain.  There is nothing to break the descent of the water; hence the naked, barren stone summits of many of the sierras, which have been pared and peeled of every particle capable of nourishing vegetation; they are skeletons where life is extinct.  Not only is the soil thus lost, but the detritus washed down either forms bars at the mouths of rivers, or chokes up and raises their beds; they are thus rendered liable to overflow their banks, and convert the adjoining plains into pestilential swamps.  The supply of water, which is afforded by periodical rains, and which ought to support the reservoirs of rivers, is carried off at once in violent floods, rather than in a gentle gradual disembocation.  The volume in the principal rivers of Spain has diminished, and is diminishing.  Rivers which were navigable are so no longer; the artificial canals which were to have been substituted remain unfinished: the progress of deterioration advances, while little is done to counteract or amend what every year must render more difficult and expensive, while the means of repair and correction will diminish in equal proportion, from the poverty occasioned by the evil, and by the fearful extent which it will be allowed to attain.  The rivers which are really adapted to

navigation are, however, only those which are perpetually fed by those tributary streams that flow down from mountains which are covered with snow all the year, and these are not many.  The majority of Spanish rivers are very scanty of water during the summer time, and very rapid in their flow when filled by rains or melting snow: during these periods they are impracticable for boats.  They are, moreover, much exhausted by being drained off, bled, for the purposes of artificial irrigation.  The scarcity of rain in the central table-lands is much against a regular supply of water to the springs of the rivers: the water is soon sucked up by a parched, dusty, and thirsty soil, or evaporated by the dryness of the atmosphere.  Many of the sierras are indeed covered with snow, but to no great depth, and the coating soon melts under the summer suns, and passes rapidly away.’

Here we have a sunny little sketch of a certain locality at Seville; it is too life-like not to have been taken on the spot:—

‘The sunny flats under the old Moorish walls, which extend between the gates of Carmona and La Carne, are the haunts of idlers and of gamesters.  The lower classes of Spaniards are constantly gambling at cards: groups are to be seen playing all day long for wine, love, or coppers, in the sun, or under their vine-trellises.  There is generally some well-known cock of the walk, a bully, or guapo, who will come up and lay his hands on the cards, and say, ‘No one shall play

here but with mine’—aquí no se juega sino con mis barajas.  If the gamblers are cowed, they give him dos cuartos, a halfpenny each.  If, however, one of the challenged be a spirited fellow, he defies him.  Aquí no se cobra el barato sino con un punal de Albacete—‘You get no change here except out of an Albacete knife.’  If the defiance be accepted, vamos alla is the answer—‘Let’s go to it.’  There’s an end then of the cards, all flock to the more interesting écarté; instances have occurred,