distinguished enterprises of her own; nor can we trace in the ambition and selfish aims of modern political chiefs any resemblance to the old chivalrous emulation, unless it be in the more deliberate cruelty which has too often disgraced the triumph of one party or other in the state. At the present day her internal revolutions are not likely to interfere with a traveller's convenience; they excite little commotion in the country itself, and none beyond the circle of those immediately interested in them. If the loss of foreign dependencies has dimmed the glory of their conquest, and curtailed the national resources, an easy indolent existence is suited to the climate, and satisfies their wants; the labouring population, as they are more industrious than those of Spain, so they are more prosperous and contented; civilisation has made little advance among them, or in general among the middle classes.

If, indeed, the condition of its railways may be taken as a standard of a nation's progress, both Spain and Portugal must be placed in a very degraded rank. Here doubtless we arrive at another substantial reason why one of these countries is scarcely visited at all and the other much less than under other conditions it would deserve.

As the approach by sea on one side deters squeamish travellers, the access upon the other through Spain is scarcely more inviting.

Railways there are, indeed, communicating with Lisbon, and inns upon the route; but so wanting in the common decencies of life, as well as defective in locomotive arrangements, that they serve rather to mark the vast interval that separates them from progressing nations, than as any evidence of enterprise or improvement. Of the value of time there is no appreciation in the native

mind; the 'administracion' is undisturbed, and the passengers appear content whether a train arrives at the appointed moment, or some hours later; nor is the irritation of an impatient traveller lessened by their complacent acquiescence in the delays.

One may wake up at midnight to find the carriage at a standstill, in utter darkness, deserted by engine and guards. A search through the dismal offices of the station may discover the staff, together with a few passengers, habituated probably to such occurrences, calmly asleep upon the benches and the floor, under the happy conviction that it must occupy some hours before a junction train due at that spot can transfer its passengers over a broken bridge; and though the expectant world will be disappointed of its mails, there is no chance of an extra engine being despatched to accelerate the arrival of the train, and disturb their repose. Bad faith keeps pace with bad management; time-tables are fallacious; printed regulations and specific contracts are equally disregarded, if an opportunity occurs of imposing an extra charge upon a traveller's necessities. Long and frequent stoppages are made, ostensibly for the refreshment of passengers; but the extreme filthiness of every place to which railway employés and passengers of every class have access in common, prohibits any near approach; while incessant smoking, even at the table, and the habits which belong to it, defile the carriages, and render food loathsome. Indeed, the domestic arrangements, both at stations and hotels (with the exception, in a limited sense, of the best in Madrid), and even in private houses of pretension, are such as to accuse a people that can submit to them of being wanting in two of the first essentials of civilisation-decency

and cleanliness. Public opinion, if any of a higher order existed, would long since have compelled a change in these respects. The insensibility of a nation to a common nuisance, for which the remedy is obvious and easy, indicates a depravity in natural taste, as well as an absence of social cultivation and refinement.

Yet railways, such as they are, have worked a beneficial change in the manners of the people, especially where it was most needed, in Spain. A few years ago, and before the Exhibitions of London and Paris had attracted many middle-class Spaniards beyond their own frontiers, they scarcely recognised the fact that there were countries and people deserving consideration besides Spain and her colonies. A stranger was an object of mingled pity and contempt. God help him, he can't speak Spanish!' announced that the speaker knew no language but his own, and his perfect satisfaction in his ignorance. A mischievous vanity, misbegotten of ignorance and pride, induced them often to give wrong information rather than own themselves at fault. Sometimes the same annoyance would be occasioned expressly from indulgence in a half-savage dislike to foreigners. A more general intercourse with the world has, in some measure, corrected this folly. A stranger will often meet with acts of willing courtesy: a sense of the apathy and shortcomings of their countrymen, and desire for better and more extended education, are not unfrequently expressed; and benefiting by this practical improvement, we can endure the harmless expression of a political conviction that the one thing wanting to Spain's prosperity is the subjugation of Portugal; and that England's jealousy is the chief impediment to the attainment of her desire. Even now there is no general sense of the advantage of inviting and attracting strangers to the country. The

antiquated notion that the proprietor of an inn confers an obligation upon his guest, by receiving him on any terms, is by no means extinct; and the treatment, as well as the charges, are in accordance with this inverted idea.

Had these countries been alive to their own welfare, a rich harvest would have been gathered in during the disturbed condition of France. Numbers of travellers put out of their usual course, would have turned their steps to comparatively new fields of recreation, and both countries would have reaped the benefit, as they are capable of repaying the trouble of a more extensive journey than excursionists are in the habit of making.

Even under present circumstances, supposing the visitor to be meditating his return home from Cintra, satiated with the perfections of nature there so highly cultivated and adorned with artificial charms, he might be well advised to brave the discomforts and disgusts of the middle passage,' and making his way through the centre of Spain into the mountains of Aragon, to view her once more under a foreign but a different aspect. There is a station called Alhama on the road from Madrid to Zaragoza, well known to natives for the virtue of its mineral waters. It was famous in the Roman times; and its name acknowledges a Moorish occupation. Baths of unusual excellence, and an hotel of comparatively good arrangement and accommodation, recommend it to invalids. A lake whose bottom appears to be supplied with soda water bottles, continually sending their gaseous contents to the surface, invites asthmatic patients to cruise about in boats, and inhale the medicated atmosphere. Το travellers in health it affords a point d'appui for an excursion to one of the most extraordinary natural curiosities of Europe. About

twelve miles from Alhama, by a good road through mountains, where every kind of rock and earth, green, white, and red, are mixed in strange confusion, we come to a picturesque valley, richly clothed with trees and verdure; here is the Monastery of Piedra, the object of our search. It came into the hands of the present proprietor, Señor Muntadas, after the confiscation of conventual estates in 1839, and the expulsion of the monks. He repaired the dilapidated buildings, and being of an active turn of mind, in various ways improved the property and the manufacture of its excellent wines. In regard to its scenery, he found that Nature had left him little to do but to wonder and adore. Happily he had the good sense to be contented with this: merely bringing into view, and making accessible, curiosities and points of interest, without attempting to improve what in its wild simplicity and grandeur is already perfect. A greater contrast to the finished elegance of Montserrat could scarcely be found. Here a larger scale of operation and sublimity of design take the place of the studied negligence and adventitious graces that adorn the other. Within a circuit of a few miles over which the estate extends are no less than twelve cascades, not slender rills dependent upon rainy seasons, but perennial and inexhaustible; more than one of the falls it thunders down 150 feet clear descent; in others it leaps from rock to rock to join the flood below; and glancing among trees and roots, nourishes an abundant vegetation. Sometimes it opens a new channel for itself and leaves hollow caverns and winding passages, where the water, oozing through the rocky roof turns the vegetation into stone, doing Nature's work with the deliberation which in her economy indicates her irresistible power. For ages it has been at work as it is

in

working still before our eyes, manufacturing stalactites and converting various substances into fantastic petrifactions. There is a cliff at some distance outside the convent wall, where a passage has been cut to descend into the valley, which affords an opportunity of inspecting its structure; and shows it to be composed in great part of petrified leaves, roots, and branches.

A few years ago, Señor Muntadas fancied he could discern an opening in the rock, behind the principal fall with great labour, cutting a ledge in the face of the perpendicular wall and tunnelling where practicable, he arrived at about mid-height of a lofty and spacious cavern, where the foot of man had never trod before; and inaccessible except to the doves that find an entrance behind the water, and perhaps to an eagle that was soaring high above the glen. The roof is fretted with stalactites in branching foliage that resembles petrified palm leaves. Beneath, are rocks in wild confusion; and a pool of clearest crystal reflecting the same beautiful tint as the azure cave at Capri. The effect of the setting sun as seen from the darkened interior of the cavern through the falling water, as indeed the sensations excited by the whole scene, it is impossible to describe.

If anything conventional could add to the pleasure of a day spent among such natural wonders, it would be found in the courteous liberality of the fortunate possessor of them; who seems to derive his own enjoyment from the gratification he is able to afford. There will indeed be no excuse for intruding upon his hospitality, when the monastery is opened, as he intends, for the public reception of visitors; the spacious halls, clean airy cells, and splendid staircase, will make it one of the finest, as well as most comfortable hotels of the Continent.

The society, however, of Señor Muntadas adds greatly to the intellectual pleasure of the day: especially to one interested in the artificial production of fish ; an operation in which he has engaged with such ingenuity and success as would excite the envy of Professor Buckland. The formation of the ground lends itself to the purpose. It would seem that the valley, some two or three hundred yards across, has been formed by a sudden subsidence of the ground from the upper platform, leaving the cliffs on either side abrupt and perpendicular. Abundant springs of water in the sheltered bottom supply a series of lakes, swarming with trout of all sizes; and salmon, as yet in the first stage of the experiment. The artificial breeding appears to require little trouble: a shed and a few tin vessels constitute the apparatus; the weeds, with occasionally a small quantity of raw flesh, supply abundant food; and the clean, fat, and flourishing appearance of the fish would satisfy the expectations of an epicure.

There is indeed no end to the objects of interest that present themselves within the convent walls, and beyond them; the pencil and the hammer may here find occupation for a life to supply the cabinet of a geologist, or a painter's

studio; perhaps those who follow neither pursuit may have the greater enjoyment, as their imagination is left free to rove at pleasure amid the abundance that is here to minister to it.

While Alhama, with its hot springs and sheltered vale, prolongs the salutary influence of a genial climate which Cintra somewhat earlier affords, we may at Piedra vary the temperature at our convenience, according as we climb the mountain, or descend into the shady glen, or seek the moister atmosphere of the waterfalls. Enough has been said to show that the first object of desire to many shivering mortals may be obtained at no great distance from our frigid shores; together with much collateral interest, that may add mental occupation to physical enjoyment. If, together with the summer and her golden sun' (without which, we hold that there is no comfort in life) we succeed in combining two such attractions as Cintra and Piedra of Aragon, we shall almost forget the needless discomforts inflicted upon us in the transit; and arming ourselves with stoic insensibility, be ready to encounter again the tedious delays, uncleanliness, and other annoyances that obstruct the way to such a paradise of delights.