ery large band, with kettle drums and bass drums and trumpets; and
because these do not make noise and uproar enough, leather bands are
snapped, at the turns in the tunes. For sleeping, I might as well have
been stretched on the bass drum. This tumult of noises, and the heat are
wearing and oppressive beyond endurance, as it draws on past midnight,
to the small hours; and the servants in the court of the hall seem to be
tending at tables of quarrelling men, and to be interminably washing and
breaking dishes. After several feverish hours, I light a match and look
at my watch. It is nearly five o'clock in the morning. There is an hour
to daylight--and will this noise stop before then? The city clocks
struck five; the music ceased; and the bells of the convents and
monasteries tolled their matins, to call the nuns and monks to their
prayers and to the bedsides of the sick and dying in the hospitals, as
the maskers go home from their revels at this hideous hour of Sunday
morning. The servants ceased their noises, the cocks began to crow and
the bells to chime, the trumpets began to bray, and the cries of the
streets broke in before dawn, and I dropped asleep just as I was
thinking sleep past hoping for; when I am awakened by a knocking at the
door, and Antonio calling, "Usted! Usted! Un caballero quiere ver a
Usted!" to find it half-past nine, the middle of the forenoon, and an
ecclesiastic in black dress and shovel hat, waiting in the passage-way,
with a message from the bishop.

His Excellency regrets not having seen me the day before, and invites me
to dinner at three o'clock, to meet three or four gentlemen, an
invitation which I accept with pleasure.

I am too late for the mass, or any other religious service, as all the
churches close at ten o'clock. A tepid, soothing bath, at "Los banos
publicos," round the corner, and I spend the morning in my chamber. As
we are at breakfast, the troops pass by the Paseo, from the mass
service. Their gait is quick and easy, with swinging arms, after the
French fashion. Their dress is seersucker, with straw hats and red
cockades: the regiments being distinguished by the color of the cloth on
the cuffs of the coat, some being yellow, some green, and some blue.

Soon after two o'clock, I take a carriage for the bishop's. On my way
out I see that the streets are full of Spanish sailors from the
men-of-war, ashore for a holiday, dressed in the style of English
sailors, with wide duck t