A Bull Fight--Frascuelo--
Cruelty to Horses--Leave for Paris--A Stormy Passage--
Home Again--Adieu.

I left for Cadiz by the small trading steamer _James Haynes_ three
days after my arrival at Gibraltar. A friend of mine being quartered
here, I stayed with him at the barracks, fortunately for myself, as
the Gibraltar hotels leave much to be desired in the way of
accommodation.

On the approach from seaward Cadiz, with its flat roofs and high
towers, presents more the appearance of a Moorish town than a European
city, and the afternoon I saw it appeared to fully justify its Spanish
appellation of "Pearl of the Sea," white and glittering in the bright
afternoon sunshine, in striking contrast to the dark blue colour of
the sea surrounding it.

I arrived at four o'clock the afternoon of my departure from
Gibraltar, and drove to the Fonda de Cadiz, in the Plaza San Antonio,
after considerable annoyance from the custom-house officers, who,
although I had nothing contraband about me, seemed determined to make
themselves as rude and unpleasant as possible, and appeared to be only
second to the Turkish and Egyptian _donaniers_, as far as robbery and
extortion are concerned.

I took a stroll after dinner to the Plaza Nina, the favourite lounge
of Cadiz in the cool of the evening. The square was crowded with
people of all classes; and the beauty of the women throughout Spain,
and especially Seville and Cadiz, is very striking, although the
picturesque costume with which one is apt to associate the Spanish
lady is fast dying out. Black seemed to be the favourite colour, as it
always has been in Spain, but the graceful mantilla is gradually but
surely giving way to the Parisian bonnet.

The streets of Cadiz are well paved, and the houses substantially
built of white stone. I was much struck at first by the heavy iron
bars with which the windows of the ground floors in this, as in all
other Spanish towns, are guarded. These, I subsequently ascertained,
are for the double purpose of excluding thieves and too ardent
lovers(!), for it may not be generally known that when a youth in
Spain is paying his addresses to a girl, the doors of her parents'
house are closed to him; nor is this all, for all intercourse with his
_novia_, or intended, is forbidden excepting through these gratings!

A visit to Cadiz cathedral, "La Vieja," is well repaid, and I was
lucky enough to hear a mass sung there. The interior of the building
is