WE departed from Valencia, regretting to quit so soon a city where there was so much that was attractive. The train moved off, and after we had proceeded a short distance the night came on. Our appetites being sharpened by long fast and the sea air, we inquired of the guard at which station the passengers would descend to dine. Being told at Castellon, we leant back on the cushions, smiling at each other with that benevolent expression of countenance which the prospect of the refreshment of the inner man produces on the outer—a sort of artificial good-nature, in fact. So fickle, however, is the mental constitution of man, so evanescent everything appertaining to human nature, that in about an hour from the happy moment just recorded we were sitting in extreme and opposite corners of the carriage, addressing staccato remarks to each other, which, although intended to be general, and to carry with them all the suaviter in modo required by the conventionalisms of good society, were at the same time remarkable for the transparency of their tenor. And though in our conduct to each other we had been perfect models of outward politeness, the manner and tone of the conversation became somehow painfully civil, not to say rather nervous and unpleasant, like that of two persons who, having at length, as they think, found each other out, adopt a tone of studied high-polite reserve, not unmixed with a complacent consciousness of their own superiority. And why all this? Wherefore this sudden estrangement between two fond hearts? The answer is simply Stomach, and nothing more; for it is trying, very trying, after one has been assured that dinner waits at a certain station, to find upon arriving there, mad with hunger, that no adequate preparation has been made for you, and, on asking for the buffet, to be directed to a greasy board in the open air, behind some wooden palings, presided over by a dirty old man with two saucers before him full of snails, a plate of minnows, and a collection of little cakes made with rancid oil instead of butter, which condiments we have to clutch at through the railings like monkeys in a cage, the only light being the illumination afforded by a farthing candle. We say it is very difficult under such circumstances to avoid the display of a little ill-nature.

The railway from Valencia, going somewhere in the direction of Barcelona, is a miserable mockery of civilisation. The engine one would imagine was about five-horse power, by the pace at which it went; and it had to stop every five or six miles to renew its supply of water. To all appearance it was simply an old boiler, furnished in a hurry with a few mechanical intestines. Not the least of its evils was that it emitted a pestilential black fume. The motion of the train had an effect upon the passengers something analogous, we should think, to that of being tossed in a blanket.

At a dreary broken-down village called Amplora, at eleven at night, in pitch darkness and drizzling rain, the Barcelona railway came to an end. We were aroused from a feverish sort of sleep by the light of a strong lantern turned full upon our faces. Having undoubled, and stretched ourselves out from a sort of patent boot-jack position, we were hastily packed up tightly, like figs in a drum, with a snuff-coloured gentleman, and stowed away within the fragrant recesses of the coupÉ of what was confidently supposed by the misguided natives of those regions to be a diligence. With our heads touching the ceiling of the coupÉ, and knees protruding through the front windows, while our luggage, boxes, parcels, and cloaks were thrown on the top of us, as if they had been heaped there with a pitch-fork, we found ourselves, it need scarcely be remarked, in a very uncomfortable position. It was not long before a collision took place between us and the Moorish-looking gentleman, our companion, whose chief characteristics appeared to be a profuse abuse of snuff, unchanged clothes, an unwashed skin, and an eagle eye. He said he was unwell, and had been told to avoid fresh air. The Anglo-Saxons said they also were unwell, but as a renewal of the oxygen in the atmosphere was considered beneficial to health, they had been advised to avail themselves of the fresh air as much as possible. We were pressed so tightly into our seats, that we looked like owls in an ivy bush, except that those luckier birds rarely have several hundredweights of luggage piled upon their bodies, so as to leave only their heads visible inside a Spanish diligence. We do not suppose either that the owls, which are generally considered partial to the fresh night air, would much like travelling with a gentleman who preferred to be cooped up during his journeys in an exhausted receiver. We were actually packed like preserved sprats in a barrel, and the Moor, who had grumbled until he could grumble no more, was seized with a violent fit of shivering and sneezing, which on the whole was very creditably played by him, and might have established for him a second-rate notoriety in low comedy at a minor theatre. He caught hold of all the rugs and cloaks he could lay hands upon, and, utterly careless of the proprietorship of the same, built a wall thereof between himself and the deadly open windows on our side of the coupÉ, and so subsided into a sort of angry slumber, broken by constant snorts and groans.

Off we started, the rays of the lantern on the front of the diligence above us streaming ahead on a team of eight white horses, and into the darkness beyond. There were two coachmen sitting on a bench immediately in front of us, considerably blocking up the small windows. These two individuals cracked their whips in a wonderful manner, until they almost played tunes therewith, giving tongue at the same time to a long duet of curious howls. Having thus relieved their feelings, they again cracked their long whips over their heads, making the eight white horses dash away amidst a peal of the little bells which were suspended all round them. On we rushed at a furious pace through the darkness, and through thick clouds of dust, rolling whitely upwards through the glare of the lamp. We passed a straggling collection of weird old trees, which nodded like passing ghosts, and disappeared in the gloom. With the earliest streaks of dawn, wild-looking mountains, dark and distant, arose in all directions, and great rocks, dilapidated villages, and mournful plains, dotted here and there by a solitary figure in uncouth garb, came in turn into the focus of the lamp. Now we swept round a sharp corner, and saw the eight white horses curving round after each other, apparently far off in the misty light, and the two coachmen, muffled up in their great shaggy coats, sitting side by side like a couple of brown bears erect on their hind quarters. We rattled and jumbled with a noise like that of near artillery over a gaunt wooden bridge, piled all over with stark black scaffolding, while the light of the lamp streamed in blood-red streaks on the dark flowing waters beneath. A group of unearthly-looking buildings on the opposite shore then came into view, hazy, indistinct, and undefined; and after passing under a high stone arch, we found ourselves in a long dark street. On each side were windows with black blinds, and the ghostly walls, reared high above us, seemed as if about to fall in ruins, and bury us in a mass of stones and rubbish. As we rattled on with a deafening noise, we turned the angle of a large edifice which looked like a mouldy fortress of other days. From the number of houses around us we must have been passing through some town or city; but no sign of life, human or animal, save ourselves, intruded upon the solitude; and night and loneliness reigned heavily over all. We at length passed with a succession of violent jerks over a crazy, neglected-looking drawbridge, and through some huge ramparts, and left the city behind us, with its deep black river flowing on in the silence. We hastened at a lively pace over brown open plains, encircled by jagged iron-like mountains, which, at first looming in the distant dawn, soon received us into their bosom. In a short space of time the jangle of bells diminished, while the whips exploded into a farewell fantasia. The drivers or coachmen climbed down from their perch, and in a moment more we descended, heated, dusty, wearied, and fretful at the miserable barn-like railway station of Amposta, where we found a table d'hÔte which groaned beneath the weight of a dish of olives, a plate of dissected cock, some salad, and a bottle of wine, remarkably ordinaire, which a shilling bottle of port from a Whitechapel gin-palace would have put to the blush. There were also some jovial viands in the shape of filthy little globules called grapes, and a few sour flabby turnip-like vegetables entitled apples. Truly travellers often see strange things in this country, to be remembered, of course, among the cosas de EspaÑa.

Here we got into a hot railway box, stuffed with cushions, apparently filled with oil, from the odour they emitted, and then jogged along at the rate of about six miles an hour. We were thankful to be well clear of that depressing place, Amposta, and sat quietly in the carriage, dreamily inhaling the morning air as we glided along. The stars were gradually disappearing from the vault of night, or paling in the advancing glory of the coming sun. A few golden bands flamed across the eastern heaven, heralding the sun's first kiss on the morning of a new day.

In a short time we were coasting along the Mediterranean waters. Now we crossed a fragile looking wooden bridge, and swept high over the waves which gently broke beneath. Then a lovely view of blue curving shores with rocks and light-houses, and of the smooth sea flecked by the white sails of numerous feluccas, broke upon the sight. Our road, however, turned suddenly away from the coast, and we proceeded inland through hot sandy plains, and occasional orchards of orange, citron, and pomegranate. Groups of white flat-roofed houses gleaming in the sun, with the palm trees waving over them, were seen pitched amongst green fields of long bamboo, Indian corn, rice, and tobacco. Sometimes we were near enough to rugged-looking mountains, to descry the dwarf oak and arbutus with which they were clothed in all directions.

Tarragona was the next town we reached. Close to it we saw great aloes, many of which were sprouting from the sand and rock-strewn beach, and from the prostrate masonry of the CÆsars. There are two towns, the higher and the lower, which are separated by a line of walls. The higher city sits majestic on a lofty rock of limestone, and from a height of eight hundred feet looks down upon the azure sea. The houses are mainly composed of the ruins of Roman palaces,—even the simple home of the artizan is adorned with marble friezes, or upheld by portions of Corinthian columns;—and on the white marble flags in the courts of the Imperial Baths, the swine were basking in the sun.

The climate of Tarragona is now, as it ever was, mild and genial, and the summer heat is tempered by the cool breeze of the sea. So salubrious was its air held to be, that the Roman PrÆtors always established here their winter quarters, and Tarragona became the capital of Roman Spain. It was originally colonised by the Carthaginians, and the flower of its youth were enlisted to swell the armies of the great enemy of Rome. Publius and Cneius Scipio, however, occupied the city, and compelled it to submit to the Roman sway. Tarragona, in the war between CÆsar and Pompey, declared for the latter, but upon his defeat at Pharsalia, humbly submitted to the conqueror, and Julius resided within its walls, calling the city "Julia Victrix." Augustus CÆsar passed one winter here, b.c. 26, and the ruins of the palace where he dwelt may still be seen supporting some ignoble bricks of modern Spain.

Tarragona stands amidst the fallen splendour of ancient Rome, while the stern mountains rising darkly around, though comparatively changeless themselves, look down upon the scene below, which, amid the wreck of an empire, speaks so eloquently of the uncertainty of human greatness.

We had just congratulated ourselves in having got rid of the Moorish-looking gentleman who had been constantly afraid of catching cold from an open window behind his wall of packages in the diligence, when we were favoured with the society of another native gentleman who had already caught cold, and, like all his countrymen, was terribly afraid of fresh air. As the sun increased in power our friend seemed to decrease in caloric, and proceeded at length to encase his legs in a sack, at the bottom of which was a hot bottle. When one of us approached the windows he requested that they might be kept well closed, in order "to preserve our atmosphere;" but unfortunately we could hit upon no expedient by which we might "preserve our atmosphere" without destroying his at the same time, and so the eternal quÆstio vexata of fresh air had to be argued once more.

The new acquisition was at first very taciturn. As the day, however, became perfectly broiling, and the hot bottle began to do its work, he seemed to show signs of thawing a little, and some of the ideas that had been ice-locked within his mind during the night began to dribble out before the warmth of day. He, however, knew as little of English as we of Spanish. For example, in explaining that we thought night-travelling a great bore, we were astonished to hear him say that—"Zee voyage in zee noctes was 'a great male pig.'" He had, of course, on some occasion looked out in the dictionary for "bore," and turning to "boar" by mistake, had found the explanation, "Boar—male pig," a piece of information which he had fondly cherished in his mind ever since, to display at the first opportunity, as a proof of his linguistical acquirements.

After a weary time, as we rattled along the iron way—the ferrocarril, as they call the railroad in Spain—the white town of Barcelona began to come into view, with its handsome outlying villas and its busy manufactories, all glowing in the bright sun, in the midst of fruitful olives and gigantic aloes. When we had reached the Station, the ever-wakeful aduanero was there to welcome us in his own peculiar way. A smile, a joke, the offer of a cigarette, and the title of SeÑor to the dirty functionary, produced the usual satisfactory effects, and we were dismissed with a polite salute before even the Inspector arrived. Without the loss of a moment's time, we were seated on the knifeboard of an omnibus, which immediately began to wend its way through the pretty boulevards of the city, and amidst the gay houses flaunting with bright blinds and awnings, which look down on a beautiful double line of plane trees forming a grateful avenue in the midst.

The Fonda de las Cuatro Naciones is a charming hotel in every respect, perhaps the best in Spain. Several of our countrymen had taken up their quarters here before us, and, according to custom, had made themselves remarkable by what we may call, if not the usual, at least the travelling peculiarities of the Briton en voyage. In the streets of Barcelona we again came across the Britisher prowling about as usual, looking very shy and miserable, the expression of his countenance seeming to say that he would be very grateful to any one who would tell him what to do with himself. Why is it that so many Englishmen creep about foreign towns as if they were ashamed of themselves—as if they were anxious to avoid the human eye, or had committed some awful crime?