Spanish Life in Town and Country

legraph as ever they were in the past. One of the stupid remarks one constantly hears made by the unthinking tourist is: "Spain is a country where nothing ever changes.

of the diligence in the old times, the domestic servant of to-day, the se?ora who happens to sell you fish, or the se?or who mends your boots, all strike the same note-an absolute incapacity for imagining that there can be any inequality between themselves and any other class, however far removed from

is once more overrun-that you have nothing for them, is a lesson in what someone has well called the "aristocratic democracy" of Spain: "Pardon me, for the love of God, my brother," or the simple Perdone me usted, using precisely the same

e posada, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the towns, does not stand, hat in

and if foreign-perhaps especially English and American-travellers do not always find it so, the fault may oftenest be laid t

his worship" as she bids him the ordinary Adios on going away, and he, with equal politeness, expresses a hope that she may "go in God's keeping," while he once more lays himself at the se?ora's feet. All these amenities do not prevent a little bargaining, the one asking more than he means to take, apparently for the purpose of appearing to give way perforce to the overmastering charms of his customer, who does not

acy with tourists, the beggars have become importunate, and to some extent impudent; but in places a little removed from such a condition of modern "civilisation," the effect produced

and he probably treats the offending traveller with the profound contempt he feels for him, if with nothing worse. A little smiling and good-natured chaff when things go wrong, as they so often do in travelling, or when the leisurely e

fit the accusing cap, and it is always those people whose super-excellent opinion of themselves, and of their infinite importance at home,

ely be said, however, even at the present day, that those who are always in a hurry would do well to choose some other country for their holiday jaunt. A well-known English engineer, of French extraction, trying to get some business through in Madrid, o

the invincible determination which holds honour as the ideal to be followed all the same whether or not any person beyond the actor will know of it, and an unquestioning obedience to discipline, which call forth the ungrudging admiration of Englishmen, proud as we are of such national stories as that of our own Little Revenge, The Wreck of the "Birkenhea

the line of the Adda, and marched his own forces and the German troops to the relief of Pavía. All were unpaid, unclothed, unfed; yet when an appeal was made to the Spaniards, Hume tells us that they aba

sand Christian captives. It was a splendid achievement, for the campaign was fought in the fierce heat of an African summer. Every barrel of biscuit, every butt of water, had to be brought by sea from Sicily, and as there were no draught animals, the soldiers themselves dragged their guns and all th

ry is repeated at Malta, when the enemy, after firing sixteen thousand cannon shots in one month against the Christian forts, abandoned the siege in despair. Meanwhile the un

heir king, starved, and without clothes or ammunition. Reduced at last to two thousand naked men, they stood in the breach to be slain to a man by the conquering Turk. Co

ed the "Day of Independence"; it was, in fact, the inauguration of the War of Independence, in which Spain gained enough honour to satisfy the proudest of her sons. The French had entered Madrid under pretence of being Spain's allies against Portugal, and Murat, once settled there to his own perfect satisfa

tempted to hold the barracks of Monteleon against the French army of invasion! The end was certain; but little recked these Spaniards of the old type. Daoiz and Valarde were killed, the former murdered by French bayonets after being wounded, on the cannon by which they had stood alone against the whole power of the French troops; Ruiz also was shot. On the following day, Murat led out some scores of the patriots who had dared to oppose him, and shot them on the spot of the Prado now sacred to their memory. Thus was the torch of the Peninsular W

ry's honour. The Oquendo, already a wreck, coming quietly out of her safe moorings in obedience to the insane orders of the Government in Madrid, steering her way with absolute coolness so as to clear the sunken Diamante, to face certain and hideous death, is a picture which can never fade from memory. It was said at the time b

f to-day without a throb of admiration and pity. No wonder that the generous enemy went out of their way to do

quixotic are rarely successful, and success is the measure by which everything is judged to-day. Be that as it may, the more intimately one knows Spain, the more one becomes aware that what is with us an amiable quality of somewhat dubious value, is one of those which go to make up the Spaniard in every rank of life. His chivalry, his fine sense of honour, are nothing if not quixotic, as we understand the word; and just as in Scotland alone does one appreciate the characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, so in Spain does one feel t

here is a good deal of truth at the bottom of these charges; they are the melancholy legacy of the years of misrule and of the darkness through which the country has struggled on her difficult way. No one looks for the highest type of character in any country among its party politicians. The creed that good becomes evil if it is carried out under one régime, and evil good under another, is not calculated to raise the moral perception; and it is only when a politician has convictions and principles which are superior to any office-holding, and will break with his party a hundred times sooner than stultify his own conscience, that h

opinions, and the traveller who can speak or understand a few words of Spanish comes back with wonderful accounts of what "a Spaniard whom I met in the train told me." In any case, no one ever says as hard things of his countrymen as a Spaniard will say of those who do not belong to the particular little political clique which has the extreme honour of co

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n wrote of her with a venom and bitterness quite at variance with his usual manner of judging things. It is in great part due to him that so much misunderstanding exists as to the Spanish custom of "offering" what is not intended to be accepted. If that peculiarity ever existed-for my part, I have never met with it at any time-it does so no longer. When a Spaniard speaks of his house as that of "y

rovision, or is intending to lunch somewhere on the way; but it is by no means an empty form. If it should chance, by some accident, that you found yourself without-as has happened to me in a diligence journey which lasted twenty hours when it was intended only to occupy twelve-the Spanish fell

ortunately, still a common trait of Spanish character; but as the Spaniard is rapidly becoming an alert man of business, it is not likely that that will long remain one of the national characteristics. Time in old days seemed of very little value in a country where trade was looked upon as a disgrace, or at least as unfitting any one to enter the charmed circle of the first Grandeza; but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. T

he be of the lower class; fond above all things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted, full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that kind of coquetry which is inseparable from unspoiled

hter, the Infanta Isabel, who, like her mother, is above all things muy Espa?ola. That the Spanish woman is passionate, goes without saying; one only has to watch the quick flash of her eye-"throwing out sparks," as their own expression may be translated-to be aware of that. While the eye