ure plants unknown, unnumbered, matchless in colour, and breathing the
aroma of the sweet south; let all, learned or unlearned, listen to the
song, the guitar, the Castanet; let all mingle with the gay,
good-humoured, temperate peasantry, the finest in the world, free, manly,
and independent, yet courteous and respectful; let all live with the
noble, dignified, high-bred, self-respecting Spaniard; let all share in
their easy, courteous society; let all admire their dark-eyed women, so
frank and natural, to whom the voice of all ages and nations has conceded
the palm of attraction, to whom Venus has bequeathed her magic girdle of
grace and fascination; let all--_sed ohe_! _jam satis_--enough for
starting on this expedition, where, as Don Quixote said, there are
opportunities for what are called adventures elbow deep.

The following account of the rivers of Spain would do credit to the pen
of Robertson:--

'There are six great rivers in Spain,--the arteries which run between
the seven mountain chains, the vertebras of the geological skeleton.
These six watersheds are each intersected in their extent by others
on a minor scale, by valleys and indentations, in each of which runs
its own stream. Thus the rains and melted snows are all collected in
an infinity of ramifications, and carried by these tributary conduits
into one of the six main trunks, or great rivers: all these, with the
exception of the Ebro, empty themselves into the Atlantic. The Duero
and Tagus, unfortunately for Spain, disembogue in Portugal, thus
becoming a portion of a foreign dominion exactly where their
commercial importance is the greatest. Philip II. saw the true value
of the possession of Portugal, which rounded and consolidated Spain,
and insured to her the possession of these valuable outlets of
internal produce, and inlets for external commerce. Portugal annexed
to Spain gave more real power to his throne than the dominion of
entire continents across the Atlantic. The _Mino_, which is the
shortest of these rivers, runs through a bosom of fertility. The
_Tajo_, Tagus, which the fancy of poets has sanded with gold and
embanked with roses, tracks much of its dreary way through rocks and
comparative barrenness. The _Guadiana_ creeps through lonely
Estremadura, infecting the low plains with miasma. The
_Guadalquivir_ eats out its deep banks amid the sunny o