centuries old, is perfect in texture and the freshness of the colors. It
might have come from the Gobelins' factory during this present year of
our Lord, and it could not be brighter or more perfect.

The grounds surrounding the structure are laid out, on the south side,
in pleasant gardens, where fountains, flowers, and a few inferior marble
statues serve for external finish. On the outside, high up above the
dome, is seen the famous plate of gold, an inch thick, containing some
ten square feet of surface, and forming a monument of the bravado and
extravagance of Philip II., who put it there in reply to the assertion
of his enemies that he had financially ruined himself in building so
costly a palace. We may expect one of these days to hear of its having
been taken down and coined into shining doubloons.

CHAPTER XIII.

From Madrid to Burgos.--Through a Barren Country.--The Cathedral of
Burgos.--Monastery of Miraflores.--Local Pictures.--A Spanish
Inn.--Convent of Las Huelgas.--From Burgos to San
Sebastian.--Northern Spain.--A Spanish Watering
Place.--Bayonne.--Lower Pyrenees.--Biarritz.--A Basque
Postilion.--A Pleasant Drive.--On Leaving Spain.--Sunday and
Balloons at Bordeaux.--On to Paris.--Antwerp and its Art
Treasures.--Embarking for America.--End of the Long Journey.

From Madrid northward to Burgos is a little less than two hundred miles,
yet a whole day was consumed in the transit by rail. The general aspect
of the country was that of undulating plains, barren and arid, without
trees, houses, or signs of animal life, sometimes for long and weary
distances. Now and then a small herd of goats, and here and there a hut,
or a group of miserable hovels, worthy of India, came into view,
followed by a hilly, half-mountainous district, but yet solitary as a
desert. Regarding natural beauty of scenery, Spain, as a whole, offers
less attraction than any other European country. Its vegetation, except
in the southern provinces, is of the sterile class; its trees, sparse,
of poor development, and circumscribed in variety. Even the grass is
stunted and yellow. Such a condition of vegetable life accounts for the
absence of singing-birds, or, indeed, of any birds at all, in whole
districts of the country. The traveler must be content with historical
monuments, which are numerous and striking, and with the strange records
attached to many of them. Antiquity consecrates many th