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b. A Two-MONTHS' TOUR THROUGH SPAIN.

March, April, and May are the most agreeable months for travelling. Thence to October there is intense heat, an arid landscape, and intolerable sun-glare, except in the northern provinces, where the country is in full beauty in summer.

The following circuit-comprehending the most interesting cities and scenery in Spain (Galicia and Navarre excepted)—may be made in eight weeks, allowing of three days in each of the cities of Granada, Seville, Toledo, Madrid, and Burgos; two days in Barcelona, Zaragoza, Tarragona, Valencia, Ronda, Gibraltar, Segovia, and Salamanca; and sufficient time in the other cities and towns to enable the traveller to see the principal objects of interest.

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I would not advise any one, much less an invalid, to undertake a riding tour in Spain during the winter months. The best season is April, May, and June, or even earlier in Andalucia and Murcia. The whole country is then in the bloom of spring, and the climate temperate and most enjoyable. In winter all the bridle roads are a sea of mud, and the going execrable, whilst in summer the heat renders travelling by day almost impossible. Autumn is likewise undesirable, as the whole country side wears an arid and tawny appearance after the summer heat and dust. In May and June of 1880 and 1881 I rode through nearly the whole of the two Castiles, and the Pyrenean portions of Catalonia and Aragon. No expedition can be more enjoyable, and in no country will one meet with greater courtesy and civility. Owing to the recollections of the great war, an Englishman is universally well received in country towns and villages; a Frenchman the contrary. A sine qua non is to speak Castellano fluently. Otherwise intending visitors had better stop at home, save their time and money, and keep their tempers, which they will most assuredly lose if they cannot talk the language. The next thing is to obtain a good servant. I have always had the same Castilian every year, and prefer them to Andalucians or Galicians-the latter the drudges of the Peninsula. If you treat a Castilian with proper respect, no servant in the world becomes more devoted to his master, or watchful of his employer's interests. As to expenses, the best place to engage your servant and animals is some minor country town. When in the Castiles I always go to Aranda de Duero, between Burgos and Madrid. In such a spot an Englishman

is a rara avis indeed, and prices have not been raised or the natives spoilt by tourists. If hired for not less than a couple of months, your servant's wages should not exceed 12s. a week, hire of a mule for him and horse for yourself about 27. 10s. per week. At the commercial hotels in large cities, such as San Sebastian, Pamplona, Zaragoza, Burgos, Valladolid, Avila, Segovia, Toledo, and the like, the universal charge is 6s. per day for yourself, and 3s. for servants, without any extras whatever. This includes chocolate and bread in the early morning, an excellent breakfast of eight courses at any hour between 11 A.M. and 1 P.M., an equally good dinner of ten courses between 7 and 8.P.M., good red wine ad libitum, and a comfortable bed. In Madrid, at the Fonda Peninsular, the charge for the same accommodation is 6s. 5d. a day for yourself, and 3s. 2d. for servant. On the other hand, in country towns and villages it seldom exceeds 4s. per diem for master, and 2s. for man. Fodder for the two animals should be 1s. a day. As regards distances, you will find the country saying of una legua una hora (one league, one hour) pretty exact if you take the good going with the bad. A standard league is 3:45 English miles, and from 20 to 40 miles a day can be done, according to the best available halting-places, resting one or two days a week. I always get under way between 6 and 7 A.M., after the morning chocolate, travel till about noon, when a fountain or stream, with a shady tree or two handy, is resorted to for the al fresco breakfast and siesta, which occupy till 2 P.M. Then on the road again till 7 or 8 P.M., when one should arrive at the quarters for the night. Spanish horses never trot or canter, but invariably go at an amble. Hence the comfortable albardilla, or saddle of the country, is preferable to, and much less fatiguing than, an English one. Likewise abhor an English greatcoat, which can never be made to fold and pack properly on the saddlepeak, and invest in a graceful and sleeveless Castilian manta. All baggage must be carried in your own and servant's saddle-bags. Consequently every drachm of weight and inch of space saved is of vital importance. Two or three enamelled iron plates and half-a-dozen knives, forks, and spoons, packed in a roll-up case, are indispensable. An English picnic basket is not worth the wicker work it is composed of, as it will not travel in saddle-bags. Two leathern wine-bottles of the country are taken, one holding about three pints for current use, and another two gallons kept in reserve. Out of the large towns provisions should always be carried. A young lamb, fowl, rabbit, or hare is the best meat. The bread is excellent, and don't forget some lettuces, oil, and vinegar for a salad, and raisins for dessert when fresh fruit is not in season. I always replenish my provender-bags at every available opportunity, and see that enough meat is cooked overnight for the next day's picnic breakfast. In the provincial posadas, ventas, and mesones, an Englishman must remember that he will be received by no smirking landlord, bowing waiter, or courtesying chambermaid; nor will he find the comforts and conveniences he does on this side of the Pyrenees. Except in the fondas of large cities bed-room washing accommodation is conspicuous by its absence. During May and June last the only tubbing I ever got was a swim in the lordly Ebro, Duero, Tagus, or one of their tributaries. Soap and a hand-looking-glass must be carried with you. Riding is the only comfortable way of visiting many of the

most interesting remains and picturesque portions of the Peninsula. The railways only connect large cities. Diligences generally arrive and depart at some abnormal hour of the night, and the stuffiness and jolting of them is intolerable.-H. F. W.

d. A SUMMER'S TOUR IN NORTH SPAIN.

The following is a pleasant long-vacation trip for the angler, the pedestrian, or the water-colour painter.

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Shooting. Although game is not so universally preserved in Spain as among ourselves, yet it is abundant; Nature, by covering the earth with aromatic brushwood in vast extents of uninhabited, uncultivated land, has afforded excellent cover to the wild beasts of the field and fowls of the air. Near Cadiz, Seville, and Madrid, some of the landowners and farmers preserve the game on their own estates; on other lands, near towns, the game is poached and destroyed at all seasons, more for pot considerations than for sport; but wherever the lords of creation are rude and rare, the feræ naturæ are abundant, and take care of themselves. Spain was always the land of the rabbit (coejo), which the Phoenicians saw here for the first time, and hence some have traced the origin of the name Hispania to the Sephan, or rabbit of the Hebrew. This animal figured on the early coins of the cuniculosa Celti Iberia. Large ships freighted with them were regularly sent from Cadiz for the supply of Rome. The rabbit is still the favourite shooting of Spaniards, who look invariably to the larder. Pheasants are rare: a bird requiring artificial feeding cannot be expected to thrive in a country where half the population is underfed. Red-legged partridges and hares are most plentiful. Thousands are exported every year to France. The mouths of the great rivers swarm with aquatic birds. In Andalucia the multitude of bustards and woodcocks is incredible. There is very little difficulty in procuring leave to shoot in Spain; a licence to carry arms is required of every one, and another licence to shoot game. An Englishman will have no difficulty in obtaining the first, whilst the second is merely a question of paying the small annual tax, which varies in prices in certain localities. The moment a Spaniard gets out of town he shoulders a gun, for the custom of going armed is immemorial. Game is usually divided into great and small: the Caza mayor includes deer, venados, wild boars, javalis, and the chamois tribe, cabras montesas: by Caza menor is understood foxes, rabbits, partridges, and such like "small deer." Winter fowl is abundant wherever there is water, and the flights of quails and woodcocks, codornices y gallinetas, are quite marvellous. The Englishman will find shooting in the neighbourhood of Seville and Gibraltar. Fishing. The lover of the angle will find virgin rivers in Spain, that

jumble of mountains, down the bosoms of which they flow; most of these abound in trout, and those which disembogue into the Bay of Biscay, in salmon. As good tackle is not to be procured in Spain, the angler will bring out everything from England. The best localities are La Granja, Palencia, Avila, Cuenca, and the whole country from El Vierzo, Galicia, the Asturias, the Basque provinces, and Pyrenean valleys.

f. A RELIGIOUS-FESTIVAL TOUR.

Religion has long been mixed up most intimately in every public, private, and social relation of Spain, as in all Catholic countries. The priesthood in Spain have, however, lost a great deal of their influence; the enforced banishment of the holy orders, consequent upon the popular émeute of 1834, was followed by the royal decree of the 17th July, 1867, which abolished the innumerable holidays and saints' days, with the exception of Christmas Day, All Saints, All Souls, St. Peter and St. Paul, St. James, together with seven others held in honour of the Virgin. The church ceremonials, on grand days, although now much shorn of their original splendour, are still very grand, and should always be visited, and especially when celebrated in honour of the tutelar saint or miracle of any particular district: local costumes and manners will be best studied at the Fiestas y Romerias, the Festivals and Pilgrimages to some high place or shrine, and at the Veladas, the Wakes or Vigils, the German Kirchweihe, which in a fine climate are at once attractive and picturesque. Akin to these are the Ferias or fairs, a word which also has a double meaning for the Spaniards, who, imitating the Moors at Mecca, have always been permitted to combine a little traffic with devotion. These local festivities have, however, sadly fallen off from the large attendance they had on their first establishment.

The principal local saints, sites of pilgrimage, and leading fairs will be mentioned in their respective places: travellers curious in these festivals should endeavour to be at Valencia, April 5; at Andujar, April 28; Madrid, May 15; Ronda, May 20; and Santiago, July 25; and should always remember to be in some great city during the Holy Week or Semana Santa (Seville is the best), and during Corpus Christi, a moveable feast which takes place the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and is celebrated everywhere in Spain with great pomp, especially at Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona, and Toledo. The services connected with the dead on the days of All Saints and All Souls in the beginning of November deserve notice; also the festivities of Christmas and Carnival time, which are more joyous, and very national and peculiar.

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§ 14.-Naturalists', Antiquarian, and Ecclesiological Tours. [23]

h. TOUR FOR NATURALISTS.-BOTANY.

The natural history of Spain has yet to be really investigated and described. This indeed is a subject worthy of all who wish to "book something new," and the soil is almost virgin. The harvest is rich, and, although labourers have long been wanting, able pioneers have broken the ground, and a zealous band is following. The great extent and peculiar conformation of the Peninsula offer every possible scope to the geologist and botanist. The damp valleys of the Asturias and the western provinces combine the varieties of Wales and Switzerland; the central portions contain the finest cereal regions in the world; while the mountains of Andalucia, covered with eternal snow, furnish an entire botanical range from the hardiest lichen to the sugar-cane which flourishes at their bases: vast districts of dehesas, or abandoned tracts, bear in spring-time the aspect of a hot-house growing wild; such is the profusion of flowers which waste their sweets, noted and gathered but imperfectly, in this Paradise of the wild bee, this garden of weeds.* The eastern and southern portions of Spain should not be visited before May, or the northern much before June.

i. ANTIQUARIAN TOURS.

The Peninsula may be divided into regions which contain peculiar objects of interest. The vestiges of epochs run in strata, according to the residence of the different nations who have occupied Spain; thus the Roman, Moorish, and Gotho-Spaniard periods are marked by evidences distinguishing and indelible as fossils.

Roman antiquities are to be met with in almost the whole of the Peninsula, but the student will find the following localities most worth visiting.

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* Consult on the "Flora Hispanica" the works of Quer Cavanillas and those named by Miguel Colmeiro, 8vo., 1846, in his list of Spanish botanical books. The botanist and entomologist may peruse with advantage the Reise-Erinnerungen aus Spanien' by E. A. Rossmässler, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1854, especially on the subject of snails.

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