OH! Toledo, imperial city, beloved of the old Goth, rich home of the Moor and Jew, [18] and chosen throne of the Emperor of the West, [19] how art thou fallen! And yet thy destiny has only been that which awaits all cities, all nations. Still the old town has a proud and lofty aspect on its rock-built seat, and though the splendours for which it was once celebrated are now mouldering, it still looks down with haughty glance on the feeble kingdom beneath, and its insolent modern capital in the midst. A volume might well be devoted to the description of Toledo, which is still magnificent even in ruins, and inexhaustible in objects of interest; but as we mean to explore some of the regions and cities of the warmer South, and even to extend our journey to the Spanish islands of the Mediterranean, we may not indulge in more than a passing glance at the crumbling walls, the falling palaces, and the Oriental courts of the old metropolis of Spain.

A view of the city from any advantageous position in its neighbourhood is very imposing. The venerable hue of antiquity is upon the whole place; and there is not a street in which there are not buildings that have been connected with important events in the history of Spain. As seen from a distance, its sombre towers rising from the treeless Vega [20] have a striking resemblance to a great fretted crown, such as might have been worn by some old barbarian giant, while the green fields through which the Tagus pursues its course appear like a green velvet cushion on which the royal diadem reposes. As we approached nearer we could judge more accurately of the height of the majestic rock on which the town, like a great castle, is built. The streets are generally steep and winding. Those of Moorish origin are very narrow, and it is difficult to find one's way through them. Their narrowness has this advantage, that it affords a protecting shadow from the oppressive heat of the noonday sun. Some of the churches are splendid specimens of Gothic architecture, though, from being towerless, they are occasionally heavy in aspect. There are many fine examples of the MediÆval and Saracenic styles, the graceful, airy-like character of the latter having something peculiarly attractive in it. But the interest of all we see attaches only to the past; the life of the city has departed long ago; and we walk through its silent streets as in a dream.

The cathedral—one of the richest in the world—is of very ancient origin; its foundation belonging to a period far back in the history of Spain. Many are the changes which it has undergone in the revolutions of the Peninsula. When the Moors conquered the city it was turned into a mosque; when in 1085 Alphonzo V. recovered Toledo, it remained, according to the king's promise, still devoted to the religious service of the Moslem, until the Archbishop of Toledo in the following year summarily destroyed all the insignia of Saracenic worship within it, and it became again a temple of the Catholic faith. A century passed, and St. Ferdinand levelled the edifice, which he felt was tainted with an unclean spirit, to the ground. A new building was then conceived on a magnificent plan; and after two hundred years' incessant labour the present splendid edifice was completed.

The general effect of its exterior, though marred by the close proximity of surrounding buildings, is exceedingly striking. Like a magnificent jewel showing its great lustre at every turn of its cutting, there is no point of view from which it cannot be seen to advantage. The cupola is a work of great taste, and the open work of the Muzarabic chapel is remarkably elegant. The stately portals, worthy of the fane to which they give admission, are of the most elaborate Gothic, and the grand faÇade, rich with ornament, is a work of inexhaustible detail and wonderful finish. The open work of the parapet is no less admirable. The three stories of the faÇade may be said to be densely peopled with magnificent statues, and the solitary belfry tower, from which ascends an elegant spire, rising to the height of 330 feet above the gloomy and silent old streets below, is crowned by a vast tiara encircling with its iron rays the great cross surmounting the whole.

The interior of the cathedral is in every way worthy of the noble aspect of the exterior. If even the idle stranger is struck with sentiments of veneration when he surveys its noble proportions—its lofty vaulted roof and its long aisles—what must be the feeling of the worshipper who comes inspired by faith to pray in such a temple?

The coloured windows are works of high art, in perfect harmony with the spirit and design of this noble cathedral. While we were examining them, the organ suddenly pealed out its solemn tones, and we knew not which most to admire—the thunder-like roll which at one moment filled the building, or the silvery sweetness of the notes by which it was followed. Sic transit gloria mundi; and truly, in such a place as old Toledo, or in the older sepulchres of the past, in Rome or Thebes, the heart of the passing pilgrim feels the weight of ages heavy upon it. Life seems to move with a slower pace, and the reflective mind is carried back to the dim eras of remotest history.

I like old cities; for there is no panorama of such grandeur as that suggested by the sight of their ruins, when the mind can call up as in a series of stately pictures those great events which have left their stamp on all ages. And no country has a history richer than that of Spain in grand and stirring incidents, or a more ample store of those venerated memorials which tell the Spaniards of the present day what their ancestors were.

How delicious it was, at night, to linger at the open casement of the quaint old Toledan fonda, and look down upon the quiet streets of the ancient city, watching the few passengers in them, while the moon shed its silvery rays on the dark old buildings, and over the far plains beyond. It was a beautiful autumn evening, and there came to us, borne along on the soft air, a strain of distant music, wild, strange, and melancholy, like the wailings of some forgotten dirge. It was a fit requiem after the toils of the day, and with the strain in our ears we went to bed and slept.

Now for Valencia and the blue Mediterranean, 306 miles distant. We start an hour before sunset on our sixteen hours' journey. The whistle screams, the train begins to move, everybody lights cigarettes. The windows are all carefully pulled up, and away we glide, wondering how long would be the process of drying, smoking, and curing the human frame into the condition of a preserved Finnan haddock or bloater. Such an atmosphere as that in which we were compelled to breathe sixteen hours, we thought, ought to do it.

Immediately after we left Madrid, our old friends, those dear, flat, uninteresting sandy plains with a few solitary olive-trees here and there, again appeared. By the way, apropos of olives, we may here utter a warning for travellers in this country. There are no half-and-half measures with Spanish olives. They are charming, no doubt, to those who are habitual eaters of them; but to such as are not, we can only say, "God help them!"

We attempted, spite of the smoke, to enjoy a few hours' sleep during the night, and were only awakened from a deep slumber on arriving in the early morning at Almanza, a miserable place with a French buffet, a Moorish castle, an historic reputation, and, thank goodness, some fresh air. We got out and walked on the platform, still rather hazy from our troubled slumbers, and found ourselves in the midst of a crowd of eccentric-looking rusticos dressed in breeches, jackets, carpets, rags, and velvet hats. We approached a magnificent French gentleman at the buffet, and received a cup of Spanish chocolate. By way of civility we asked him, "What was the difference between the Chocolat Menier and the chocolate they gave us here?" We received this answer, "None whatever, monsieur, excepting that ours is much dearer."

Leaving this very recommendatory gentleman, we turned to study the objects of local interest. Here, we thought, as well as everywhere else in Spain, there must be some interesting antiquity, something to remind us of the great men and mighty deeds of the past; and being of an inquiring mind we soon discovered that it was near Almanza that the army of Philip V., commanded by Berwick, gained a victory over the troops of the Archduke of Austria in 1707.

We had made considerable progress, and were now about seventy miles from our journey's end,

About twenty miles beyond that place, as well as we could judge in our rapid course, the vegetation began to improve, and the olives appeared to have a fresher hue, a more vigorous growth. The country, too, became more picturesque, diversified as it was occasionally by rocky hills. We passed, also, what appeared to be deserted villages. For a time, however, this part of the country could not be seen to great advantage, as we had frequently to pass through dark tunnels and deep cuttings. Here and there was an attempt at a vineyard or two, in which the stunted shrubs seemed to grow with great difficulty among the stones and sand. One village which we remarked, pitched on a mountain slope, seemed to be the very place for a band of bandits. The gaps of savage highlands were backed in the distance by purple lines of remote scenery, pencilled, as it seemed, along the sky. The nakedness of the hills was concealed by the pine trees with which their slopes were covered.

The next place we reached was the old brown, tumble-down town of Mogente, basking in a sunlit valley, where grow Indian corn and the prickly pear. Low, whitewashed, terraced cortijos, or farm-houses, are scattered upon the rocky slopes, while high over the vale topple some broken towers of the ancient Moor. Onwards we went, across ravines, dry watercourses, and long, straight, white roads, bordered by stone-pines, the olive, and the mulberry. Country people of an Arab-looking aspect, brown, red-sashed, and semi-nude, were jogging along in the sun and dust on sturdy, gaily-dressed mules. Bold peaks, topped with ruined castles, frequently appeared suspended above us as we moved onwards at a rapid rate. The abundant vegetation afforded evidence that we were now in the midst of a more luxuriant soil; while from across the wide garden-like plains, distinguished by that long dark line of sapphire in the distance, the breath of the Mediterranean at length fell soothingly upon the brow.

As we drew towards our journey's end we passed several more towns, but so rapidly that they seemed like the phantoms of a dream. We could descry, however, their rich churches and spiring campanarios nestling amongst deep green bowers. At one point of our progress we observed a long Moorish wall, with its ancient battlements, scaling in yellow zig-zags the steep mountain's side, till it joined a fortress on the summit. White tombs, shaded by mournful cypress, sometimes reminded us of Eastern lands. In all directions the stately palm-tree waves aloft its graceful plumage, and the orange first greets the eye, while lonely convents are seen perched like eagles' eyries high on rocky summits, looking down upon a paradise of brilliant green, and fruits of gold, spread in the fertile vale below. The glowing plains, and the waving lines of the light grey hills, are all lit up by sparkling villages, silver streamlets, and the rays of the glorious sun. Onwards we speed through groves of the feathering palm, with their grape-like clusters of yellow dates, through bowers of deep green foliage, and through corn and rice-fields. We dash rapidly through high walled Moorish towns, with the palm-trees rising in their warm streets, in which are reposing from their toil Bedouin-like figures; and over patches of stony waste land, sown with great aloes and the Indian fig. On one side are thick plantations of bamboo and cane, and on the other gardens of lemons, melons, and rosy pomegranate. In fact, the approach to Valencia, the Sultana of Spanish cities, is in Europe, perhaps, well-nigh unrivalled. The curtain rises, as we have seen, upon stony wastes and desert plains, and falls upon all that tropical vegetation which is peculiar to the beauteous climate and rich soil of Eastern Spain. This is the busiest part of the country; and besides the orange, lemon, palm, cactus, and pomegranate, we find rice, flax, corn, pepper, and tobacco growing in wild luxuriance, until the white gates of Valencia open to receive us.

On descending from the train, near the beautiful classic circle of the Plaza de los Toros, we jumped into a Tartana [21]—a wonderful black vehicle, hooded over, like a gondola on wheels, or a cart in which they carry away the dead in time of plague—and on we rattled, trying very hard to look as if we enjoyed the peculiar sensation produced by the absence of springs. The pavement resembled nothing on earth, unless it were the roadway of Regent Street as it might appear strewn with stones from a druidical circle. It was perfectly useless attempting to smoke, for the cigarette was just as likely to enter the eye or the ear as the mouth. Thus we jolted and bumped on through cool lofty streets, so narrow that the rays of the sun, save for one hour of the day, can never visit their depths. Here we were again in a thoroughly Spanish town. The houses were painted in brilliant colours, pink, blue, green, and red, and there were numerous balconies, from which blinds, and mats, and carpets, of every hue, were drooping.

On we jolted, swinging round sharp angles, bringing quaint old houses of ancient grandees into sudden view before us, and ever and anon coming upon noble churches, sculptured over with wondrous devices up to the topmost towers, that reeled with the clang of bells. Again we dived sharply into a labyrinth of dark narrow alleys, swarming with busy crowds, with all the goods and wares half out into the street, and filling the dilapidated balconies—a scene of life and bustle which nothing can rival, save the bazaars of Smyrna or Stamboul. With a fearful bump we swung round a church corner in the bright, gay, open sunlight into squares whose spacious mansions look down upon gardens of palms, trumpet-flowers, aloes, acacias, and oleanders, all watered by the spray from marble fountains, springing up high in the midst. In a few minutes, however, we were down again into a narrow, picturesque, and dirty calle, filled with priests with shovel-hats, Murillo-like urchins, all rags and grins, gaudy mules, and men dressed in breeches, sash, and broad velvet sombreros, with long coloured mantas thrown gracefully across their shoulders; while, high above, the opposite eaves of the dark wooden houses nearly meet, exhibiting between them only a long band of deep blue sky.

Rattling on, we burst once more into a wide, busy market-place, with town-hall, tower, and church, all elaborately sculptured, and with low, dark arcades burrowing beneath the houses. The open space was gay with the coloured awnings of merchants' stalls, and alive with buyers and sellers. The hum of many voices and the cries of water-carriers were heard all around us. In a word, the market-scene from Masaniello was before us. Here were piles of magnificent fruit and vegetables from the fertile campana around the city; there vast heaps of oranges and melons, with great bunches of yellow dates and purple grapes, were heaped upon the ground. Fish from the near Mediterranean were exposed for sale, and assortments of large earthen vases, made in the neighbourhood, were still hardening in the sun. We saw on all sides groups of stately long-eyed women, glancing out from beneath the shade of the mantilla, with classic features and luxuriant blue-black hair; others, robed in dresses of fantastic dye, pressing naked brown infants to the breast as they talked and sold at their stalls. Whole caravans, drawn by large mules dressed in trappings, and tinkling with bells, stalked past us; and strong oxen, yoked together by the head, drawing heavily-laden carts by the sheer force of their necks and horns alone, made their way slowly over the place, while some semi-wild dogs snatched at their heels as they were disturbed during their bask in the sun. There was the trim, upright torero [22] with shaved lip and short crisp whiskers, dressed in his every-day suit of braided jacket, red sash, tight trouser, pigtail, and velvet hat, while the swinging forms of the mountaineer in his goat-skin, and of the stalwart peasant, with his coloured manta sweeping from his shoulder, and his feet in sandals, passed through the midst. The everlasting cigarillo was smoking from their lips, and the gaudy kerchief hung down upon their necks from beneath the black velvet bonnet.

Beautiful fountains grace the streets, and rows of acacias wave like feathers in the breeze. Nothing, in fact, can be conceived more picturesque than the narrow streets, with church and palace, with coloured houses, with balconies and banner-like awnings; nothing more calm than the climate, nothing more brilliant than the ever-changing scenes in the plazas, nothing more interesting than the motley cigarette-smoking crowds, so different from the dingy mob of a London street; finally, nothing more Spanish than the entire picture.

We landed at the Fonda de Madrid, where we intended to take up our quarters; but before ascending the spacious marble stairs we found it necessary to make way for a troop of blind beggars who were being conducted down step by step by their friends. These poor creatures were suffering from the local disease of ophthalmia, and the cause of their assemblage on the present occasion was, that once a week a good doctor holds a levee in the hotel for the gratuitous treatment of their malady, para caridad y para el amor de Dios. Such disinterested benevolence, which is by no means uncommon among medical men in all countries, is very praiseworthy; but at the same time we are bound to confess that the sights which are sometimes brought under our eyes on such occasions are far from agreeable to casual tourists.

The train by which we had arrived was—considering that it was one of the cosas de EspaÑa—naturally late. We had been altogether eighteen hours on the journey from Madrid. However, before breaking our fast, in fact immediately on our arrival at the fonda at Valencia, we naturally asked for the sea. "Three miles off at the port of El Grao," [23] was the answer. Here, acqui, tout de suite, una tartana, look sharp! and we were immediately rushing through the streets, and out of the city into the long yellow roads, with the sand and dust up to the axle of the two-wheeled gondola, in quest of our bath. We passed over a splendid bridge, spanning the waterless river Turia or Guadalaviar, and commanding a splendid view of Valencia, with all its coloured spires and domes resting against the spotless sky. We were driven through a long avenue of acacias and palms until, as we were going due east, we were naturally brought up by the sea. "A boat, a boat,"—batel, batel! we exclaimed; and in answer to our summons, about twenty almost naked fishermen with red rags round their loins immediately pulled to shore, like a swarm of minnows attracted by a piece of bread; but although we wanted a batel, we had no desire to fight. However, in a few minutes we were stripped and swimming away merrily on the buoyant wave, so deep, clear, and blue; inhaling health, strength, and delight at every stroke. The rugged outlines of the lofty mountains of the Spanish coast were gradually fading from sight in the morning haze, while, afar off, as we lay motionless on our backs floating on the calm surface of the sea, the eye caught the distant gleam of the long sail of many a felucca, softly pink in the reflection of the morning's glow.

Ah! those careless days, snatched from the serious toil of our existence, they come not again. Those sunny holidays which we enjoyed in the society of friendship, how happy, though few, they were, and how delightful it is to recall them to memory! They come but rarely, and at distant intervals, but for that reason they are only the more delightful. They pass quickly, but their memory is as green as ever, and in calling to mind our various wanderings, we feel almost as delighted as we actually did when our footsteps ranged at freedom in a strange land and under a foreign sky. Well may the desponding poet sing:—

Back again then we turned, through the acacias, the palms, the glare and the dust, and over the old bridge with its statues, spanning the waterless river. We passed the grim old fortress-gates of other days, and walls topped with mouldering battlements, standing up before the nineteenth century to verify the former strength of the Moorish conqueror. We again went through the perfumed gardens and wide white plazas, all glowing in the sun; the dim labyrinthine streets once more received us; and, stumbling out from the black plague-cart, we were soon within the beggar-haunted fonda. Here we discussed a meal, consisting of enormous prawns, like reptiles swimming in oil, and of red chocolate, sweetened with mare's milk and cinnamon. But as the proverb says, "the jaw of man brought all evil into the world," we suppose, therefore, it is meet that it should suffer occasional retribution; and sure enough it will suffer it among some of those cosas de EspaÑa which have no resemblance to those of any other country.

To turn out into the streets of a foreign town—the more foreign the better—is a great delight; to go forth alone and see where fate will lead us, and to wander and meditate, undisturbed by cackling guide, who, with the spirit of plagiarism which is characteristic of his race, waits until we have informed him of some historic fact, and then tells it back again in half-an-hour as his own information. Follow us then, gentle reader, and bear with the eccentric "order of our going," and in your amiability, favour us by remembering that that which may seem disorder to some is with others a law of their nature which they must obey. So we pray

Out again into the hot, bright squares, and then into the old Gothic cathedral, where we found ourselves in comparative darkness, in the enjoyment of a very agreeable coolness. This ancient ecclesiastical structure is built on the remains of a Moorish mosque which had itself arisen from the ruins of Roman temples. How agreeable was the contrast between the hot, garish day without, and the dim, religious light of the old church, with its mysterious incense-laden atmosphere, gemmed with a hundred twinkling lights, and traversed by brilliant rays from the coloured windows, rays which fell in various hues upon the marble statues standing ghost-like against the venerable walls, and lighting up the lofty spears of brazen screening until they seemed like fiery arrows shot up from the world beneath by some unmeasured bow. Such was the spirit of the place, that I felt as if I could have joined in the devotion of the shrouded figures who were kneeling silent and still upon the marble pavement, while every thought seemed to rise heavenward with the noble strains of the organ. We emerged again into the heat and blaze of the crowded streets, through which troops of dusty soldiery were threading their way, and in which the blare of martial music was mingled with the clash of the church's bells. We found our way into a stately market-place, in the midst of the bustle of which we got entangled in a procession of the Virgin. As it was quite a characteristic scene, we thought it worth looking at, even though the delay cost us a few moments. A little boy in scarlet drawers and embroidered shirt led the way, making a hideous noise on a drum. He was followed by four seedy-looking gentlemen with vacant faces, and without hats, dressed in respectable every-day suits of black, bearing long, lighted candles. Next, making unnatural strides, and tricked out in muslin and tinfoil,—like "My Lady" of the sweeps on the first of May,—came two unfortunate little girls of about twelve years of age, carrying trays of rose-leaves. These poor children, from this unwonted exercise, seemed very puffy and red in the face. Then came the piÈce de rÉsistance of the entertainment. Four ragged peasants in goat's skin and sandals bore along on their shoulders a palanquin, or rather a piece of an old wooden door, which supported a great wax doll, whose cheeks were of the deepest vermilion, with a tin hat or crown on its head, and a piece of ordinary Manchester coloured cotton kerchief tied by a string round its waist. The procession was closed by several men bearing flags, and by a band of music, the members of which, in the uniform of old soldiers, produced with their instruments music so original in its character that I am unable to give the reader any conception of it. The band, as usual everywhere else, was surrounded and followed by a large crowd of idlers, of chattering old women, dark-eyed maidens, and yelling urchins, who, notwithstanding their appreciation of the strains which they heard, lost no opportunity of performing various practical jokes upon the public generally. Knots of men, with skins burnt to the darkest brown hue, and clad in striped mantles, velvet sombreros, and sashes, with their legs bandaged, and their feet in apostolic-looking sandals, were sauntering in the street, followed by some stray dogs and a loose mule or two. Anything like the noise they all made as they threaded their passage through the crowd, cannot be conceived. Their incessant chattering somewhat resembled that heard in the parrot-house of our Zoological Gardens.

In the province of Valencia, if we may believe their statistical authorities, there is an average of six hundred murders per annum. And the judicial mind of the Valencians is very amenable to lenity towards the accused, under the softening influence of Spanish money equal in amount to about three pounds sterling. The value of human life does not appear to be estimated very highly by the masses, and it is frequently sacrificed on very slight occasions. A few words at a tavern, a little heat in argument, or a slight difference of opinion, will generally end in one of the disputants finding six inches of cold steel entering his vitals in some unsuspecting moment. A sharp knife is found to be a very decisive method of settling all controversies, whatever may be their nature. These knives, which are sold in the shops avowedly for the purpose for which they are used, are very formidable instruments, with blades from three inches to a foot and a half in length, and with this inscription engraved thereon, "Soi sola para defender el onor." However, after our own Todmorton heroes, and young gentlemen who pass their time in pursuit of science by dissecting little children in woods and carrying about their eyes in their pockets, we cannot well blame the Spaniards for endeavouring, in the indulgence of such little social amenities, to keep up in the race with other civilised nations.