to say, "Our church ignores the sufferings of the heart. She does not divine them. She has little of compassionate precaution or wise regard to delicate pains, no intuition of the mysteries of tenderness, no religious suavity. Under a pretext of spirituality, we crush legitimate aspiration. We have lost the mystic sense; and can there be a religion without mysticism, a rose without perfume? We are always saying repentance, sanctification, but consolation, adoration, these also are two of the essential elements of religion." Nevertheless, Protestantism is still to him a church; and his church and the shadow of its unsculptured porch is grateful to his aging eyes.

The application of the words "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these," etc., to works of practical benevolence is happily universal in our day among all who bear the Christian name. Our object has been to call attention for a moment to miseries of a no less poignant reality which are beyond relief by gifts of clothing, food, and shelter; and he whose brief life in Judea, whether or no it have the unique and eternal significance which his professed followers assign it, did certainly epitomize in a remarkable degree the numberless varieties of human woe, had his full share in this nameless and incorporeal anguish. Over and above its privation of all that have ever been held the prizes of human existence, love, honor, beauty, riches, and power,

that life of thirty-three years passed encompassed by a great sphere of spiritual sorrow, into the mysteries of whose awful culmination a not too reverent theology has, for the most part, peered in vain. Reflecting upon these things, we are more and more confirmed in our impression that there is a fixed place in the mundane order for souls whose too keen sense of its imperfection deprives them of the little power they might otherwise possess to disguise, or modify, or ameliorate it. The average world, which shakes its wise head over their inexplicable inefficiency and needless enervation, still dates its daily doings from the commencement of a life which called forth the saddest commentary ever yet pronounced upon a so-called, unsuccessful human career : "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not."

Harriet Waters Preston.

I.

THE choice spirits of our day have found a term of contempt stronger than that of "Philistine," namely, "Cook's Tourist." Indeed, it includes the other, for who but a Philistine would go to a land of art, historical associations, and natural beauty for a four weeks' trip with a return ticket? Yet I am ready to make the humiliating confession that I have done this thing, and found so much to see and enjoy, even under those galling circumstances, that a short account of my journey may amuse other Philistines, and point out a new path for their innocent pleasures.

Experienced friends who know Spain well, and have known her for over a quarter of a century, warned me against disappointment. I was not to expect customs, or costumes, or fine cities, or fine scenery, or comfort in traveling, or ease in an inn, or, above all, "local color; " that had vanished before the approach the distant approach, it would seem of civilization. Indeed, they were so anxious that I should not expect too much that they had some difficulty in specifying what I was to expect: pictures, to be sure, such as could not be seen anywhere else, and a few fine churches, and the Alhambra, they would not promise anything more; yet they urged me to go, by all means. Over-persuaded in this singular manner, I set out with my expectations pitched at a moderate height, and here offer my thanks to those friends for the delightful surprise they prepared for me.

At Bayonne, a pretty town with a physiognomy of its own, there are indications of Spain perceptible even from the railway notices printed in Spanish and French, and coachmen in Figaro jackets. There we had the first glimpse of the bay NO. 321.

VOL. LIV.

3

of Biscay, a mere peep between the harbor fortifications, standing on its head in a truly traditional manner. The French frontier towns either stretch along the sandy shores or cling high up on the cliffs of these turbulent waters, which are so shut in by headlands as to resemble a series of fiords or lakes; the short, sharp spurs of the Pyrenees strike into them, a succession of abrupt hills and deep dells covered with slender pine-trees, an undergrowth of golden gorse and broom lighting up the evergreen gloom like sunshine. Every town has its church and its ruined fortress on a rising ground above the cross-timbered, many-storied, deep-eaved, galleried Basque houses. Hendaye stands on a promontory so isolated by intervening knolls that it looks like a conical island covered with a cluster of picturesque houses, no two alike, encircled by walls, climbing from the water's edge to the castle at the summit. Another - San Sebastian, I think is separated from the mainland by a tiny land-locked bay, joining the sea by a straight, narrow creek between two steep ridges. The smiling little town, with its white dwellings, blue balconies, and red roofs, is built in two regular lines on each side of the channel, as if it were a street; seen across the intervening water, the effect is strange and charming. The robust, well-knit peasantry, with hawk noses, wild, bright brown eyes, bronzed skin, and strong white teeth, recall the Welsh type. They have no resemblance to the people at the stations north of Bordeaux, who are unmistakably French; the dissimilarity is a striking illustration of the difference between a nation and a race. They almost universally wear the Basque costume, a blue berret, or round woolen cap, and blue or brown homespun jacket and trowsers; a few, prin

cipally public coachmen, sport jacket and breeches gay with embroidery, silver braid, and double rows of silver buttons, high leather gaiters, a bright sash, and a little varnished black hat with a silver band, worn jauntily over one ear. They are very proud of their nationality and language; there is a guide-book story that they consider it the original one spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise. Their farming implements might be made on the model of those used by our first parents after leaving the garden of Eden, and are not designed to mitigate the curse and spare the sweat of the brow of their descendants. Nevertheless, the Basque peasantry contrive to till their valleys and hillsides very well. At Irun the type and dress disappear; the next stations show only mongrel Spanish.

My first contact with the new country was at Irun, in the custom-house, and all the boding words of the guide-book had not sufficiently forewarned me. There were but few travelers, and there were, relatively, a great many officials. The time-table announces three quarters of an hour's delay to examine luggage, but we stopped an hour and a half; the additional respite being explained by the difference between Paris and Madrid time, which is made good out of the patience of the passengers. Three dignified personages, each with a long cloak thrown gracefully over his left shoulder and smoking a cigarita, took my modest baggage into examination, while my fellow travelers had about as many apiece to investigate theirs. The slowness, the seriousness, the silence, and the suspicion with which this investigation was carried on were entirely unprecedented in my experience, although I had made acquaintance with the custom-houses of half a dozen European countries, some of them in time of war. Articles of the most trifling value and common use excited the deepest doubts in those mistrustful breasts.

A woolen wrapper, the first thing which met their eyes, spread frankly over the contents of the lower compartment of the trunk, was taken out, weighed, measured, tested by four of the five senses, and regarded with much shaking of heads. I was asked whether it was new, whether it was for sale, and a number of other questions, which I did not understand. As the successive layers of my wardrobe were subjected to the same scrutiny, my patience gradually gave way. There is one piece of advice in which all guide-books concur, and which had been repeated to me by everybody who knew anything of Spain, on hearing that I was bound thither: Never lose your temper. There is nothing, they said, which a Spaniard cherishes like his self-love; he cannot bear the slightest offense to his dignity, and unless you wish to have the worst of it you must treat him with the utmost forbearance, even under the utmost provocation. It is proverbially difficult for one of an English-speaking race to keep his temper with anybody who does not understand the English language; and when, in addition to this, the delinquent does not understand the use of a sponge the difficulty is aggravated. In spite of these trials, I controlled myself until the three officials, having tossed about the contents of my trunk and strewn the custom-house counter with them, dismissed me with a condescending wave of the hand, and turned away. Then my temper was too quick for me, and I informed them in the plainest English that they must put back what they had pulled out, and leave my effects in the order in which they had found them. They looked at me inquiringly and seriously. I repeated my words in a louder voice and with emphatic gestures, whereupon they gravely refolded and repacked the clothes, tucking and patting them under their covers, and locked the trunk; a porter seized it and rushed off with it to the luggage-car, the officials

and I parting with a pantomime of mutual esteem. This little prefatory incident sent me into Spain in a good humor which withstood all subsequent trials of the journey, so that I cannot say whether the same plan would have answered invariably.

Leav

At Irun the scenery changes. Leaving the bold, warm-colored cliffs and blue coves, the road passes into a dreary and uninteresting region, without trees, rocks, or striking outlines; poorly cultivated hillsides rising steeper as they draw back toward the distant Pyrenees. But as night approached, so did the mountains, their grand and rugged profiles breaking through masses of golden and crimson cloud, into which the fog of the day rolled at sunset. It was a gorgeous, profuse, dazzling change, and amid the heavy purple peaks a silvery wedge of solid white gleamed through the rifts of the splendor. At twilight we were rushing between high walls of rock, rising sheer from their foundations like titanic masonry, and through gray wintry forests of great trees, twisted and torn by the winds into the semblance of monstrous hobgoblins. A depressing series of tunnels ushered us into the darkness of night. It had been as warm as June when we left Bayonne, at noon; it was as cold as December before midnight, when we stopped at Burgos.

I had heard so much of the dirt and discomfort of Burgos that nothing but the length of the journey from Bayonne to Madrid, twenty hours, decided me to halt there, the other towns on the route dividing the distance too unequally. As I walked up the wide, easy, dingy staircase of the Gran Hotel de Paris (Antigua Fonda de Rafaela), having previously made my bargain (without doing which nobody should enter either public abode or conveyance in Spain), the unscrubbed paint of the walls and the odor of mouldy cheese, which got the better even of strong smells of tobacco

The

and garlic, made me quail a little. I never saw a less prepossessing hostelry except in out-of-the-way towns in the old Italian States of the Church, or in one of our second-rate Southern cities, twenty years ago. My bedroom was a large, bare, square chamber, fully twenty feet high, with whitewashed walls rudely painted to imitate panels and wainscot; the furniture consisted of a shabby, uncomfortable sofa, a chest of drawers, above which hung a distorting mirror, a small and rickety wash-stand, a huge brazier of dead ashes, and two or three new cane chairs, the single rung of which was but six inches below the seat, so as to defy even an American's attempts to use it as a foot-rest. floor was covered with a straw matting; the bed stood in an alcove, with green merino curtains. Although there was a thick layer of dust over everything, the bedding proved to be perfectly clean, the wash-stand well supplied with water and towels, and there was no difficulty in having a traveling bath-tub filled. This was a fair sample of my lodgings throughout Spain, and travelers should not expect more. To conclude the chapter of creature comforts, let me say that at Burgos and everywhere else the two essentials, bed and board, were not only irreproachably clean, but in all respects tolerable. I here first made acquaintance with tortillas, or eggs scrambled with tomatoes, a very nice breakfast dish; with omelets fried in olive oil instead of butter or lard, which had too unfamiliar a taste to be pleasant at first, but which I soon learned to prefer to those fried in grease. The bread was excellent: a little salt and not very white nor too light, something like a home-made loaf; an agreeable change after the spongy French rolls. Then there was rice cooked in various ways, all of them good, and macaroni savory with cheese or gravy. coffee was delicious; but cow's milk must always be asked for, or otherwise

The

the traveler will be given goat's milk, which spoils tea, coffee, and every other beverage. Here, too, I had my first cup of Spanish chocolate, thick and frothing, but overspiced; it tasted of cinnamon rather than chocolate, as did all that I drank in Spain. Salad is always served at dinner, very nice, of fresh, crisp lettuce, and excellent oranges are never failing. This is a Grahamite bill of fare, but one need not starve upon it; and there were many strange dishes of meat, plentifully seasoned with garlic and several varieties of beans, for those who liked them. The wine was sweet and strong, with a family flavor of port, and as violet-colored as in the days of Théophile Gautier. The demeanor of the servants at the Gran Hotel de Paris teaches a wholesome lesson to those who find cause of complaint on this head in American hotels. There were two in the dining-room, a man and a maid, the latter a most slatternly person, who dressed her hair elaborately every afternoon and stuck a flower in it, with out changing her soiled apron; next morning the apron was still more soiled, the hair was rough, and the flower was faded, but still there. The waiter was trimmer, spoke a little French, and was called El Chico on account of his stature, like Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings. This pair used to present themselves a quarter of an hour after the bell sounded for a meal, and lean on either side of a large arched doorway communicating with the pantry, which opened into the kitchen, and amuse themselves with our impatience as the food was not served for another fifteen minutes. The boarders, who were apparently officers in garrison, lawyers, and men of business, who messed there and lodged elsewhere, would remonstrate good-humoredly at first, and then grumble. The servants, leaning against the door-posts, laughed and chaffed them, ironically congratulated them on their appetite, and inquired if they would have

their food now or wait until they got it, with similar facetiæ. Once during the midday breakfast, which corresponds to luncheon in England and America, a burst of military music and the measured tramp of feet announced that soldiers were passing. The servants immediately set down the dishes they were serving, ran to a window, threw it open, and stepped upon the balcony, where they remained, talking, laughing, and looking at the regiment until it was out of sight. The meeker spirited of the guests joined them, following them back into the room when they deigned to return. Before the repast was over the drums were heard again; out rushed the servants a second time; nobody else stirred, and a gloom fell on the company; but it did not in the least disturb the cheerfulness of the couple on the balcony, who came back at their own pleasure, and chatted gayly with each other, as nobody else would speak to them. This was my introduction to the extraordinary democracy of manners which prevails throughout the most aristocratic and top-lofty society in the Old World.

The first morning in Burgos, on waking, I threw open the heavy wooden inner shutters and the long French window of my room, which looked on a balcony, and I drew back dazzled by the blaze of sunshine. Below, market was going on in an open square, groups of men in wide slouched hats and dark cloaks thrown over the left shoulder, and of women in black, with veils worn mantilla-wise over head and bust, stood about amongst shaggy brown donkeys, who were munching pensively, freed from their harness, and black oxen, with sheep-skin frontlets, lying on the ground near their carts, amid heaps of unfamiliar vegetables and dark red or creamcolored pottery of strange and beautiful shapes. The scene was shut in on one side by a long pale pink house front, with little iron-railed balconies at every