compelled to give the same amount, and the to- | Vandermeulen's pictures representing the statetal was handed to the bride as a gift.

They have not learned yet to advertise the contribution and the names of the contributors in the newspapers; but that fine custom will come no doubt with larger enlightenment, when they have achieved our own republican simplicity of manner. The bride was attired in a sombre mantle that covered her like a pall, to which, as she never smiled or displayed the least gayety while under its folds, it may fitly be compared. She wore it all day, and was never to put it on again, I was told, until her husband's death, when it would serve for a garment of mourning. Though invited by every one, she did not dance on the day of the ceremony, always declining very gravely with the words, "Not on such an occasion as this." At sunrise the next morning two roasted chickens were brought to the bedside of the married pair, and were eaten without rising, in the presence of witnesses, to typify that their lives were united, and that they were thereafter to have every thing in common. The same evening there was a ball, which was opened by the bride and bridegroom, but the dance was so slow and serious that it hardly deserved the

name.

ly journeys of the pretentious monarch, and in the specimens preserved in the Hôtel de Cluny. The coche is as tawdry, awkward, and uncomfortable as any hidalgo could desire, and so harmonious with the character and claims of many of the inflated old Dons that I do not wonder they have been loth to its surrender. It suggests the sixteenth or seventeenth century creeping through the nineteenth; but is much less an anachronism in Spain than it would be any where else.

The coche, drawn by six horses or mules, is under the guidance and direction of the master and his assistant (mozo), both of whom are often fantastically attired in high-peaked hats worn over a bright-colored handkerchief fastened after the manner of a turban, a gay embroidered jacket, plush breeches, a red or yellow sash,' and shoes of undressed leather. In the sash is the navaja (knife) that all the peasants carry, for ordinary and extraordinary use, for pacific and hostile purposes.

No Spaniard of the humbler class is without his knife. He is enamored of offensive weapons, seldom going any where without his gun, and never parting company with his blade. He is very dextrous with the navaja. In his hands it is a formidable weapon. He wields it like a gladiator; can hurl it with precision, and drive the blade into a post or a man at a distance generally reckoned safe. He is extremely ig

The Maragatos are a melancholy people, and take all their pleasures and recreations as seriously as if they had been born in America. They can be seen any day with their files of Leon mules-the best in Spain-walking alongnorant of anatomy as a science; but he underthe dusty highway to La Coruña, swearing and hurling stones in true arriero style at their patient beasts. They are much less profane than the other muleteers; but the entire class believe violation of the. Third Commandment essential to their calling. They assured me that it is impossible to manage a mule without swearing, and have a saying that an ass's ears are made long to catch oaths.

The Maragatos seemed to me the least polite of the inhabitants of the Peninsula, and to have a greater dislike to “outside barbarians" than any of their countrymen, all of whom hold foreigners as quite superfluous in the plan of creation. It may be for this reason that the Maragatos make no effort to prevent their mules from brushing wayfarers or horsemen over the declivities of the mountain-paths, with the projecting baggage strapped on their backs. If they succeeded in crowding a man off in that manner, I doubt if they would stop to learn the consequences, but would comfort themselves with the thought that no foreigner had a right to interfere with the progress of a wellconditioned mule.

The coche de colleras (coach of horse-collars) is passing away, but I saw and tried it several times in the rural districts and on the public roads, at a distance from the large cities. It is very like the English lumbering vehicle of Queen Anne's time, and the French equipage so shapelessly conspicuous in France during Louis XIV.'s reign, and which we still see in

stands it socially; that is, he knows the exact spot at which to aim a mortal blow, and can reach the heart of his adversary as quickly and surely as any surgeon.

The mozo, often called el zagal (strong youth), is one of the most energetic of Iberian natures. He is a thorough factotum, and seems incapable of fatigue. One of his most important duties is to pick up stones on the highway (all mules on the Peninsula are driven by stones), and discharge them at the beasts during the journey. With this lapidcous ammunition he is perpetually supplied, and yet he uses it as lavishly as raw recruits do their cartridges at their first engagement. He is probably the most accomplished swearer of the whole Jehu class, who are all proficient enough to have a cerulean influence on the atmosphere. The variety and extent of his oaths are astonishing; but he makes no account of his superiority in this regard, and is, I suspect, quite unconscious of his genius for the profane. There is no saint in the calendar and no evil in the Decalogue he does not couple. He anathematizes all created things, and if his invocations were answered he would bring down the universe in fragments upon his irreverent head. The ideal and exemplar of the mozo is the mayoral. To be regularly perched on the box and be intrusted with the exclusive guidance of six mules is his highest aspiration, and he believes, with a sort of quadrupedal and vehiculary theology, that the gates of Paradise are just broad enough to ad

mit the cumbersome coach which is the object and table-lands (parameras and tierras di campo), of his hourly worship.

How well I remember the preparation and starting from a way-side posada of the first coche I rode in!

without trees, hedges, inclosures, or landmarks, oppressively sad and monotonous. Those plains, like the Siberian steppes, give rest neither to the eye nor to the mind. Dryness is their pervading feature; and during the summer the soil is parched and scorched by the sun. In the Castiles, every object, animate and inanimate, is literally burned umber. The land, the huts which make up the scattered hamlets, the peasants, the mules, the stews even, and the scant verdure, are all brown—a color I ought to

This starting is an event, and illustrative of the country. The attendant circumstances of getting off in the morning were full of drollery. Though it seemed hardly fair for an American to laugh at the people that had so much to do with the discovery of his country, I could not help it. It may have been justifiable for their interference in our then rather confused inter-approve of for personal reasons, but which in national affairs. At any rate, I enjoyed the elaborate exordium of departure.

excess may be objectionable artistically. When I first traveled through those spacious provinces, the apparent desolation, the mud-hovels or mud-huts, made of sun-dried bricks (adobes), the hard-featured, unwashed peasantry toiling in the dusty fields, so oppressed me that I re

after mile of the tawny and barren soil stretched and winked under the blazing sun. The poverty and destitution reminded me of the worst parts of southern Ireland, though in Ulster the land smiles with greenness, and the people are merry in the midst of misfortune. The Castilian peasants seem indolent as they lean upon their spades to watch the passing train or rumbling diligencia or the perspiring pedestrian-always an object of wonder, for no Spaniard can comprehend how any one should walk if he can help it; but they resume their labor when curiosity is satisfied, and work hard and faithfully and long. They are the least attractive to the stranger of all the provincialists in Spain; but they have good and sterling qualities, and are probably superior to any of the rest in integrity and character. They improve upon acquaintance; are patient, loyal, hospitable, and cheerful, with strong domestic tastes, and a keen sense of humor.

The harnessing was primitive-the various pieces of rope and leather were laid on the ground like a net, the animals dragged into it, and finally fastened within the mysterious tangle. The master then collected the heteroge-peated Che seccatura! again and again as mile neous reins; the mozo gathered a quantity of stones in his sash; the servants and assistants of the venta, where I had lodged overnight, appeared with sticks, and two or three old women, who are older and homelier in Spain than any where else, came out with their shrill voices, accompanied by a few lean dogs and thirsty loungers, resolved to assist on the occasion. The master shouted, swore, and shook the reins; the mozo shouted louder, swore deeper, and hurled a volley of stones-he is an animated catapult at such times; the attendants of the inn brandished their sticks, assaulted the beasts, and bellowed vociferously; the female antiques screamed in altissimo; while the loungers gesticulated and made grimaces that would have frightened any animal but a Spanish mule into mortal speed. This combined clamor and attack, this enforcement of material logic, finally resulted in the moving of the ponderous coach, which, as it groaned over the uneven highway, resembled a Dutch lugger on wheels. It did not seem that the crazy old vehicle could reach the end of the journey before its absolute dissolution; and I was as much surprised as any well-regulated mind allows itself to be in Spain, when I learned that, at the close of the day, it had accomplished twenty-five or thirty miles.

The hours were not misspent. I found entertainment in listening to the calling out of the driver to his obdurate beasts. They had sonorous and many-syllabled names, like Balcatilla, Robidetto, Arthemayor, and Chippimenta, and the last syllable was dwelt upon with a species of operatic quaver that would have elicited applause at the Theatre Real of Madrid.

The truest and purest representatives of Spain I found, of course, in New and Old Castile. Though the largest provinces in the country, embracing a third of its entirety, and containing some of the most ancient and national cities, they have, with a good deal of fine scenery, much of the dreariest and sterilest in the kingdom. The mountainous regions include numerous landscapes which render the plains

They

It is a striking instance of compensation that the people who are compelled to live in such a dreary region, and doomed to endless toil, are entirely contented, and would not exchange their squalid huts for the costliest abodes of Granada and Seville. It is their comfort and their pride that they are Castilians, which means that they have few equals and no superiors. They know nothing of other countries than Spain, and have no desires beyond it. are in the world, but not of it. Their sphere is bounded by the few acres they cultivate, and their sympathies confined to the members of their family and their immediate neighbors. Their thoughts rise no higher than their awkward head-covering (montera), and their cloaks (capas) and over-coats (anguarinas) are the boundaries of their wishes. They have no glass in the rude apertures called windows; they live on chick peas (cicers); they bake in the summer and freeze in the winter; they hardly have water enough to drink in the dry season, and would never think of wasting it in washing But as they are natives of Castile, where under; the-by, the soap of that name is nev was, that of Spain. I

have always fancied he was actuated by the ion; "but it wouldn't be half as sensible as the malignity that so permeated his nature. He vernacular over the wicket, 'You're not goodmust have been gratified by reflecting how very looking, and you can't come in.'” uncomfortable his survivors would be in the sombre city, whose climate is described as nine months Greenland and three months Tophet.

I can't commend the hotels of the capitalon the whole, I think the boarding-houses (casas de huespedes) are superior—but it is a very fair place for thirsty souls, and none in the wide world is thirstier than your Castilian. The common remark that they don't drink water on the Continent does not apply to the Spaniards, the dryness of the climate producing a like effect

Madrid is to me the least agreeable capital in Europe, and, with the exception of St. Petersburg, the dearest. It is the Washington of the Continent, which no one visits a second time unless called there by business or detained by destiny. The Spaniards are proud of Mad-upon the inhabitants. I found one of the few rid because it is in Spain, and have told me with great unction that it is nearly two thousand years older than Rome. I am confident it was never heard of until the tenth century; but still I should think it might have been built before any other city, as a warning not to have another like it. It was rejected in turn by Iberian, Roman, Goth, and Moor, and might have been to-day an insignificant town but for the gout and phlegm of Charles V., who was benefited by its rarefied air. I have always ascribed to the location of the capital at Madrid, instead of Lisbon, the decline of the country, since it led to the revolt of Portugal and many subsequent ills. Various were the efforts to remove the capital from the windy basin on the Manzanares; but it could not be done. Nations, like individuals, are unable to resist their fate. I should send my friends to Paris and my foes to Madrid, where nothing but a vigorous constitution prevents men from being blown into the nearest cemetery. The delicious but pernicious breeze of the Roman Campagna is nothing to the air of the ancient Majoritum, which, as is truly said, will not put out a candle, but will extinguish life. Many strangers, broiling in the sun of the Plaza, have been delighted with the coolness the Guadarama sends them, until they discovered the undertakers were watching them with professional interest.

In my opinion there are but four months, April and May, October and November, favorable to a visit, though the Carnival time is the gayest, if not the most agreeable season.

The Madrilenians, like the Parisians, live in flats, and have staircases in common; but the doors to their apartments are thick and strong, and provided with wickets through which the servant or occupant surveys you before admission. I obtained an idea from such precautions that they consider themselves in a state of social siege, which is not very far from the truth; for every paterfamilias seems imbued with the idea that the external world is only waiting for an opportunity to carry off his wife and children, and that it behooves him, therefore, to be perpetually on his guard. Some of the interiors are desolate enough, and coming out of one in the Calle de Toledo with an American one day, after being fearfully bored, I suggested placing Dante's familiar Lasciate, etc., above the door.

good things in Madrid to be water, particularly that from the spring outside of the Puerta Segovia; although the city is not lacking in other palatable liquids. The Guadarama snows supply the place of ice, and the half-and-half (mitj e mitj), made of barley and pounded chochos, the clarified verjuice (agraz) mixed with Manzanilla wine, and the beer combined with lemon juice (cerbeza con limon), I thought very refreshing, and found my opinion momentarily confirmed by the natives. In all the public squares, promenades, cafés, restaurants, and theatres, drinks may be had at any moment. Wherever I walked or lounged men and boys were going about with matches for lighting cigars and cigarettes, and with vessels containing water, lemonade, wine, and mixed potables. The Spaniards smoke so constantly that they keep thirsty from morning to night, and really pass their days in alternations between fire and water, or something stronger. Emulsions are great favorites with them in sickness as well as health. The leche de Almendras, a sovereign remedy for various ills, is almost exactly the aμvydaλn pappakov aya@ov of Athenæus, and is believed to be excellent from its age, which always begets reverence in Spain.

Beyond certain buildings and certain quarters, I was hardly repaid as a sight-seer for my exertions in the capital. Few of the streets are handsome or impressive, and nearly all of them have the gloominess and unchangeable aspect that spring from the superabundant bile of the nation. The Puerta del Sol (it is called the Gate of the Sun because it was once the eastern gate, on which the rising sun shone) is now a public square in the middle of the city, whence the principal thoroughfares radiate. The Puerta-Murat perpetrated the butchery of 1808 there was formerly the resort of idlers, gossips, and news-mongers, and furnished opportunity for studying costumes. But modern progress has brought changes in dress and habits, and substituted for the place-hunter and adventurer the cicerone and mendicant. The former is not so desirous to be employed as he is in other countries; but the latter is among the most importunate of his tribe.

I have often heard that Spanish beggars are so sensitive that if alms are once refused they will not ask again. I should have been glad to find them so. But I have had a very different experience. Denial seems to sharpen their en"That would be classical," said my compan-ergy; and the only phrase reputed to have an