great and thriving capital remains. It has no commerce and but one
industry,--the manufacture of arms and sword-blades,--which gives
occupation to a couple of hundred souls, hardly more. The coming and
going of visitors from other lands gives it a little flutter of daily
life, like a fitful candle blazing up for a moment and then dying down
in the socket, making darkness only the more visible by contrast. The
once celebrated sword factory was found to be of little interest, though
we were told that better blades are manufactured here to-day than in
olden time, when it won such repute in this special line. So well are
these blades tempered, that it is possible to bend them like a watch
spring without breaking them. In looking at the present condition of
this once famous seat of industry and power, recalling her arts,
manufactures, and commerce, it must be remembered that outside of the
immediate walls, which form the citadel, as it were, of a large and
extended population, were over forty thriving towns and villages,
located in the valley of the Tagus, under the shadow of her wing. These
communities and their homes have all disappeared,--pastures and fields
of grain covering their dust from the eyes of the curious traveler. The
narrow, silent, doleful streets of the old city, with its overhanging
roofs and yawning arches, leave a sad memory on the brain, as we turn
away from its crumbling walls and antique Moorish gates.

An excursion of thirty-five miles, to a station of the same name, took
us from Madrid to the Escurial, which the Spaniards in their egotism
call the eighth wonder of the world. This vast pile of buildings,
composed entirely of granite, and as uniform as a military barrack, is
nearly a mile in circumference,--tomb, palace, cathedral, monastery, one
and all combined. The wilderness selected as the site of the structure
shows about as little reason as does that of the locality of Madrid;
utter barrenness and want of human or vegetable life are its most
prominent characteristics. Here, however, are congregated a vast number
of curious and interesting objects, while the place is redolent of vivid
historical associations. One of the first objects shown us here was the
tomb of Mercedes, the child-wife of the present king; also, in a deep
octagonal vault, the sepulchres of some thirty royal individuals, kings
and mothers of kings. Among them were Philip II., Philip V., Ferdinand
VI., Charles V., etc. The niche o