a system of secret inquisition the teachings of science,
gaining power over the minds of the officers in the army, and
establishing a press agency which shall become a danger to the
constitution.

Spain's outlook seems brighter to-day than it has ever been since her
Golden Age of Isabella and Ferdinand; and it is the people who have
awakened, a people who have shown what power lies in them to raise their
beloved country to the position which is her right among the nations of
the world. But prophecy is vain in a country of which it has been said
"that two and two never make four." This year, if all go well meantime,
Alfonso XIII. will take the reins in his own hands--a mere boy, even
younger than his father was when called to the throne; than whom,
however, Spain has never had a more worthy ruler. But Alfonso XII. had
been schooled by adversity--he had to some extent roughed it amongst
Austrian and English boys. He came fresh from Sandhurst and from the
study of countries other than his own. To a naturally clever mind he had
added the invaluable lesson of a knowledge of the world as seen by one
of the crowd, not from the close precincts of a court and the elevation
of a throne.

For his son it may be said that he has been born and carefully educated
in a country where absolutism is dead, and by a mother who, as Regent,
has scrupulously observed the laws of the constitution. He will come, as
King, to a country which has known the precious boon of liberty too long
to part with it lightly; to a kingdom now, for the first time in
history, united as one people; where commerce and mutual interests have
taken the place of internecine distrust and hatred. It is only at the
present moment that this happy condition of things is spreading over the
country; each month, each week, giving fresh evidence of new industries
arising, of fresh capital invested in the development of the country. It
is in the sums so invested by the mass of the people that those who
believe in a bright future for Spain place their hopes; but we may all
of us wish the young monarch for whom his country is longing,
"God-speed."

PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

CHAPTER XVIII

LAND AND PEOPLE

It has been said, and it is often repeated, that if you strip a Spaniard
of his virtues, the residuum will be a Portuguese. This cruel statement
is rather the result of prejudice than arising from any foundation in
fact. It has a superficial clev