with which other countries are deluged. And although he may not contemplate with pleasure the change of railway-carriage to Diligence, yet will he probably determine, on his arrival at Perpignan to proceed forthwith on his journey, however profuse the promises of good cheer, by those interested in plucking birds of passage. If the blessing of a cup of tea was ever known at its Hotel Petit Paris, it certainly antedated the growth of the bitter herbs of which ours was made. Hope is a welcome harbinger of many good things, and may serve to relieve the tediousness of the hourswhen mountains clothed with cork-trees, or when darkness shuts out the sight of glade and glen-by the promise of one day seeing completed this last link of international railroad communication between France and Spain from Perpignan to Gerona. And if more be needed to secure a cheerful submission to the detentions and discomforts of a Diligence route of sixty milesabout eighteen hours in time-it may be found in the reflection that by selecting the land instead of the steamer route from Marseilles to Barcelona, twenty-five or twenty-six hours of rolling, pitching, and still more merciless bobbing, by Mediterranean chop-seas, have been avoided, with their unmentionable calamities. The Carthagenians and Romans must have been strong of stomach, as well as faith, to go about as they did in cockle-shell galleys. As to St. Paul, it is not wonderful that he bearded Nero on the Palatine, when weeks of the Mediterranean "tempestuous wind Euroclydon' which drove him to final shipwreck on "Melita," did not shake his resolve of appeal from the injustice of the Jews to the judgment of Cæsar.

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CHAPTER III.

TRAVELLING IN SPAIN. TOURISTS THEIR OWN BEST PURVEYORS OF PLEASURE AND PROFIT. HOTELS. CATHEDRAL ARCHITECTURE. GERONA. ST. PAUL'S JOURNEY TO SPAIN.

SPANISH CATHEDRALS. THAT OF GERONA. CHURCH OF SAN PEDRO. CHURCH OF SAN FELIU. BEWARE OF COUNTERFEITS.

ALTHOUGH at Perpignan, and on the road thence, much will be seen characteristic of peninsular dress and usages, yet, strictly speaking at Gerona should commence on this route-the tourist's particular observations of Spain and Spaniards, whether his visit be one of pleasure or profit; for it is supposed that the former will be enhanced by an interest in costumes and scenery -much of the latter, revealed by the constantly changing kaleidoscope of travel being peculiar; while the gain, whether it be material or intellectual, will surely be unattained without study of men and things generally.

It is not proposed to exemplify herein the full advantages of this rule of action. Passive looking, not laborious learning, is alone permitted to frail health. Yet the record of a valetudinarian's experiences may not be without its use to those who would lengthen that span of life, which-however some may affect to wish abridged-embraces, if we so will it, a realization

of goodness and gladness. And, that benefit to others. may be more likely to come of these pages, let it be distinctly repeated, that on the more frequented tracks of travel in Spain, now covered with rail from north to south, and east to west, there is no greater peril to personal safety than in other parts of Europe-when free from revolutionary disturbances. And the same may be said of the Diligence and carriage roads, over which the more curious inquirer may have occasion to pass. The cost in both cases is about the same as north of the Pyrenees. Railway speed, however, is much less in Spain from the later introduction and less perfect organization of the system. The hotels— the Spanish "fondas"-found on the main lines, are sufficiently comfortable: while some of them are scarcely surpassed by the best elsewhere in Europe; the charges being certainly not higher, with the advantage to the traveller of paying a specified sum per day for board and lodging, which may be ascertained beforehand on inquiry, without the liability of that summing up of known and unknown items, the aggregate of which so commonly shocks the inexperienced in the system of swindling on the more fashionable highways of travel. As to the out-of-the-way taverns, the country or village "posadas," although but very primitively and sparsely furnished, yet will bed and board be found in these, clean and wholesome, refreshing to the weary and satisfying to the hungry. Clean sheets are the pride of a Spanish hostess; and if the cook put but a single dish on the table-the national olla podrida-it will be found so cunningly compounded of choice morsels of varied flesh and vegetables, as to satisfy an honest appe

C

tite. And one crowning virtue awaits the entertainment, you pay an equitable price for what you get; and not, as is common in other parts of Europe, an extortionate sum for what you do not get.

The difficulties of travelling in Spain, the discomforts of conveyances, the dangers and delays of the road, the rudeness at inns, the unfitness of food, and the generally uncivilized state of the whole country, have been exaggerated by thoughtless talkers, and prejudiced writers; who, finding some things, undoubtedly, in which she has not yet responded to the summons of progress elsewhere, have been too prone to deny to her any merit. Many of the dishes, and quite a number of the usages of hotels abroad, have been imported by foreignerschiefly Swiss and Italians-who have become landlords in the leading cities of Spain. But where they are not to be found, and in regard to the customs of society generally, the traveller who conforms as far as practicable to those conventional in the place in which he happens to be, will find himself most likely to be paid for his sacrifice, by escaping undesirable public notice, and preserving an unruffled temper. A sojourner among strangers cannot reasonably expect a social revolution for the gratification of his notions, which to them may seem quite as absurd as theirs to him. It is easier for the one to give up temporarily his peculiarities, than for the many to surrender their life-long habits. And those who have seen how unenviable, and much to be pitied, the position is of those foreigners who stubbornly seek to brave the long existing national customs of others, will have no hesitation in conforming their practice, when it requires no abandonment of moral

duty, to the suggestions of good policy. Whether a beau breaks his fast with a cup of chocolate and a glass of delicious water, instead of a dish of tea "piping hot," and washes down his déjeuner with the juice of the grape, in lieu of "stout" or a glass of "half and half;" and whether a belle wears a Spanish veil, in place of a doll-hat on top of a mountainous chignon, or a cart-load of curls, cut from the cranium of a dead laundress or lorette; need be considered a matter of no great hardship judged of either by good taste, or common sense. But it is a matter of some moment, that one should not disarrange the economy of a whole household, and sour his own temper besides, by insisting upon what may be impossible; and that the other should not make herself ridiculous on the street by persisting in a silly singularity. It is needless to multiply examples to enforce the counsel given, to consult the comfort of a compromising disposition.

Among the objects in Spain which will best repay frequent and prolonged examination by the merely curious traveller, as well as by the amateur in art, and the devout religionist, are the great cathedrals, which are alike its ornament and its boast. In no part of Europe have historical events exercised a greater influence upon sacred art, than here. From the time of the invasion of the Moors, down to the Christian conquest of Granada in the latter part of the fifteenth century-a period of nearly eight hundred yearsalthough face to face with each other, and frequently mingling in commercial and other intercourse, such was their hatred growing out of hostile creeds, that either would have deemed it sacrilege, to borrow from the