speech.

The Castilian first recognizes the Catalan by his pronunciation, to say nothing of his voice, but particularly by his uncouth expressions. Hence a foreigner who comes to Spain with an illusion that he can speak the language may easily be able to cherish the illusion so long as he remains in Catalonia, but as soon as he enters Castile and hears for the first time that crossfire of epigrams, that profusion of proverbs, the apt expressions, the clear and happy idioms, he stands aghast like Alfieri in the presence of Dame Vocabulary when they were discussing hosiery; and then farewell illusion!

On my last night I visited the Lyceum Theatre, which is said to be the most beautiful in Europe, and probably the largest. It was crowded with people from the pit to the highest gallery, and could not have accommodated a hundred more persons. From the box in which I sat the ladies on the opposite side looked no larger than children, and on half closing one’s eyes they appeared like so many white lines, one for each row of boxes, tremulous and sparkling like an immense garland of camellias impearled with dew and swayed by the breeze.

The vast boxes are divided by partitions which slope down from the wall to the front of the box, so enabling one to have a good view of the persons seated on the front row; consequently, the theatre looks like a great gallery, and so acquires an air of lightness which makes it very beautiful to look upon. All is in relief; all is open to the view; the light strikes every part; every one sees every one else; the aisles are wide, and one may come and go, turn with ease in any direction, look at a lady from a thousand points of view, pass from the gallery to the boxes and from the boxes to the gallery,—one may walk about, talk, and wander here and there all the evening without striking elbows with a living soul. The other parts of the building are in proportion to the principal room—corridors, staircases, lobbies, vestibules like those of a great palace. Then there is an immense, splendid ball-room in which one could place another theatre. Yet even here, where the good Barcelonians, after the fatigue of the day, should think of nothing but recreation or the contemplation of their beautiful, superb women,—even here the good Barcelonians buy and sell, bargain and chaffer, like souls condemned to torment.

In this corridor there is a continual passing of bank-runners, office-clerks, and messenger-boys, and the constant hum of the market-place. Barbarians! How many beautiful faces, how many noble eyes, how many splendid heads of dark hair in that crowd of ladies! In ancient times the young Catalan lovers, to win the heart of their ladies, bound themselves to fraternities of flagellants and beat themselves with whips of iron beneath the windows of their loves until the blood burst from the skin; and the ladies cheered them on, crying, “Lash thyself still harder, so; now I love thee, I am thine!” How many times did I exclaim that night, “Gentlemen, for pity’s sake give me a whip of iron!”

The next morning before sunrise I was on my way to Saragossa, and, to tell the truth, not without a feeling of sadness at leaving Barcelona, although I had been there only a few days. This city, although it is anything but the flower of the beautiful cities of the world, as Cervantes called it,—this city of commerce and warehouses, spurned by poets and artists—pleased me, and its hurried, busy people inspired me with respect. And then it is always sad to depart from a city, however unfamiliar, with the certainty of never seeing it again. It is like saying good-bye for ever to a travelling companion with whom one has passed twenty-four happy hours: he is not a friend, but one seems to love him as a friend, and will remember him all one’s life with a feeling of affection more real than that one holds toward many who are called by the name of friends.

As I turned to look once again at the city from the window of the railway-carriage, the words of Alvaro Tarfe in Don Quixote came to my lips: “Adieu, Barcelona, the home of courtesy, the haven of wanderers, the fatherland of the brave! Adieu!” And I continued sadly: “Lo, the first leaf is torn from the rosy book of travel! So all things pass. Another city, then another, then another, and then—I shall return, and the journey will seem like a dream, and it will seem as though I had not even stirred from home; and then another journey—new cities and other sad partings, and again a memory vague as a dream; and then?” Alas for that traveller who harbors thoughts like these! Look at the sky and at the fields, repeat poetry, and—smoke. Adios, Barcelona, archivio de la cortesia!

SARAGOSSA.

A FEW miles from Barcelona one comes in sight of the serrated crags of the famous Montserrat, a peculiar mountain which at first sight raises a suspicion of an optical illusion, so hard is it to believe that Nature could ever have yielded to so strange a caprice. Imagine a succession of little triangles connected with each other, like those which children use to represent a chain of mountains, or a crown with a pointed circlet, stretched out like the teeth of a saw or a great many sugar-loaves ranged in a row, and you have an idea of the distant appearance of Montserrat. It is a group of immense cones which rise side by side one behind another, or rather one great mountain formed of a hundred mountains, cleft from the summit to a distance almost one-third of its height in such a manner that it presents two grand peaks, around which cluster the lesser ones. The highest altitudes arid and inaccessible; the lower slopes mantled with pine, oak, arbutus, and juniper, broken here and there by measureless caverns and fearful precipices, and dotted by white hermitages, which stand out in bold relief against the aërial crags and the deep gorges. In the cleft of the mountain, between the two principal peaks, rises the ancient monastery of the Benedictines, where Ignatius Loyola meditated in his youth. Fifty thousand pilgrims and sight-seers annually visit the monastery and the caves, and on the eighth of September a festival is held which brings together an innumerable throng from every part of Catalonia.

Shortly before we arrived at the station where one gets off of the train to ascend the mountain, a group of school-boys from an academy of some unknown village rushed into the railway-carriage. They were making an excursion to the monastery of Montserrat, and a priest accompanied them. They were Catalans—with fair, ruddy faces and large eyes; each one carried a basket containing bread and fruit; one had a scrap-book, another a field-glass. They all laughed and talked at once, rollicked about on the seats, and filled the car with infinite merriment. But, although I strained my ears and racked my brain, I could not understand a word of the miserable jargon in which they were chattering. I entered into conversation with the priest.

“Look, sir,” said he after the preliminary sentences, as he pointed out one of the boys: “he knows all the Odes of Horace by heart; the way in which that other boy can solve problems in arithmetic would astonish you; this one here is a born philosopher;” and so he described to me the gifts of each.

Suddenly he interrupted himself to shout “Beretina!” (Caps). The boys all drew their red Catalonian caps from their pockets, and with cries of delight proceeded to put them on, some slipping them back so that they