kes us well acquainted, are as marked in this
hurrying age of railway and telegraph as ever they were in the past. One
of the stupid remarks one constantly hears made by the unthinking
tourist is: "Spain is a country where nothing ever changes." This is as
true of some of the national traits of character as it is false in the
sense in which the speaker means it. He has probably picked it out of
some handbook.

Chief among these traits is dignity. The most casual visitor is
impressed by it, sometimes very much to his annoyance, whether he finds
it among the unlettered muleteers of Castile, the labourers of Valencia,
or the present proprietor of some little Old-World _pueblo_ off the
ordinary route. The _mayoral_ of the diligence in the old times, the
domestic servant of to-day, the senora who happens to sell you fish, or
the senor who mends your boots, all strike the same note--an absolute
incapacity for imagining that there can be any inequality between
themselves and any other class, however far removed from them by the
possession of wealth or education. Wealth, in fact, counts for nothing
in the way of social rank; a poor _hidalgo_ is exactly as much respected
as a rich one, and he treats his tenants, his servants, all with whom he
comes in contact, as brothers of the same rank in the sight of God as
himself.

_Bajo el Rey ninguno_ is their proverb, and its signification, that
"beneath the King all are equal," is one that is shown daily in a
hundred ways. The formula with which you are expected to tell the
beggars--with whom, unfortunately, Spain is once more overrun--that you
have nothing for them, is a lesson in what someone has well called the
"aristocratic democracy" of Spain: "Pardon me, for the love of God, my
brother," or the simple _Perdone me usted_, using precisely the same
address as you would to a duke. It is no uncommon thing to hear two
little ragged urchins, whose heads would not reach to one's elbow,
disputing vigorously in the street with a _Pero no, Senor, Pero si,
Senor_, as they bandy their arguments.

English travellers are sometimes found grumbling because the senor who
keeps a wayside _posada_, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the
towns, does not stand, hat in hand, bowing obsequiously to the wayfarer
who deigns to use the accommodation provided.

This is one of the things in which Spain, to her honour, _is_
unchanged. The courtesy of her people, high or low, is ingrained, and if
fo