rators. "All
Spaniards," Mr. Ford remarks, "are very dangerous with the knife, and
more particularly if surgeons. At no period were Spaniards careful even
of their own lives, and much less of those of others, being a people of
untender bowels." If the Peninsula surgeon is reckless and destructive
with his steel, the physician, on the other hand, is usually
overcautious with his drugs. Almond-milk and vegetable decoctions,
impotent to cure or aggravate disease, are prominent remedies in the
Spanish pharmacopoeia; minerals are looked upon with awe, and the
timid _tisane_ practice of the French school is exaggerated to
absurdity. Upon the principle of keeping edged tools out of the hands of
children, it is perhaps just as well that Spanish doctors do not venture
to meddle with the strong drugs commonly used in England. Left to
nature, with whose operation asses'-milk and herb-broth can in few cases
interfere, the invalid has at least a chance of cure.

Unassailed by either variety of Spanish bloodletters, the doctor or the
bandit, Mr. Hughes pursued, in high spirits and great good humour, his
long and leisurely journey from Irun to Lisbon, _via_ Madrid. We left
him at Paris, strolling in the passages, dining with his friends of the
_Charivari_, frequenting the _foyer de l'opera_, leading, in short,
rather a gay life for a man in such delicate health; we take him up
again upon his own favourite battle-ground of the Peninsula, where we
like him far better than in the French metropolis. At Burgos he is in
great feather, winning hearts by the dozen, frightening the garrison by
sketching the fortress, waging a victorious warfare of words at the
_table-d'hote_, and playing pranks which will doubtless cause him to be
long remembered in the ancient capital of Castile. There the maid of the
inn, a certain black-eyed Francisca, fell desperately in love with him,
and so far forgot maidenly reserve as to confess her flame. "She had
large and expressive eyes," says the fortunate man, "and had tried their
power on me repeatedly, and the like, I am bound to say, (in narrating
this truthful history,) did sundry Burgalese dames and damsels of more
pretensions and loftier state." These were far from being the sole
triumphs achieved at Burgos by this lover of truth, and loved-one of the
ladies. He managed to excite the suspicions of the whole population,
especially of the police, who set spies to dog him. He was taken for a
political agent,