these depreciatory estimates the Spaniards themselves do not share. So far from this, they lavish upon it the most enthusiastic and hyperbolical praises. Solo Madrid es corte, is one of their sayings. Donde esta Madrid calle el mundo, is another that is, "Madrid is the only court"-and Madrid is the only court" and "Where Madrid is let all the world be silent." If the Sevillanos glorify their city in the well-known couplet

"Quien no ha visto a Sevilla

No ha visto a maravilla,"

the Madrileños cap it by another, which declares that he who has not seen Madrid has seen nothing.

In this case, as in most others, the truth lies between the two extremes. Madrid is neither so superlatively good nor so intolerably bad as it is made out to be. If it lacks the brilliancy and exuberant vivacity of Paris on the one hand, and the picturesqueness of Seville or Granada on the other, it yet has a more than French picturesqueness, and a more than Spanish vivacity and sparkle.

It must be admitted that for all practical and commercial purposes its situation is nearly as bad as possible. It stands, indeed, in the geographical centre of Spain. But the most central spot may happen to be the least accessible. And this is the case with Madrid. Its communications with the other parts of the country are very difficult. The cost of conveying merchandise from Madrid to Bilboa, or any other point upon the coast, is heavier than the freight from Bilboa to London. It was chosen as his capital by Charles V., simply because its keen, bracing air happened to suit his gouty, phlegmatic temperament. It is therefore what the Germans call a Residenzstadt; that is to say, a town which has become a capital because it is the residence of the prince.

Almost every other capital in Europe is upon the banks of a navigable river. Madrid is one of the very few exceptions to this rule. At a height of 2450 feet above the level of the sea-the height of Coniston Fell, Plynlymmon, and only a little short of Cader Idris-water communication is of course impossible. Until 1854, indeed, the city was almost waterless, and was dependent for this necessary of life upon the Gallegos or water-carriers. So scanty was the supply that it used to be said that every drop of water brought into Madrid was drunk; none being left for purposes of ablution. The city is now well supplied with abundance of most delicious water, which is distributed into every part by the hydraulic works of an English company.

The jokes current in Madrid at the expense of the dry waterless channel of the Manzanares are innumerable. That of the French troops on entering the city—“ What, has the river run away too!"—has been already quoted. It gives point to a favourite epigram that the city has "men without courage, women without modesty, and a river without water." An English writer, remarking upon the facts that it is perhaps the only capital in Europe which is not likewise an episcopal see, makes the "dry joke that Madrid has neither see nor river.' The Madrileños themselves laugh at the story of a young man who, fainting at a

SITUATION OF MADRID.

bull-fight, had a cup of water put to his lips. Having drunk a little, he put it from him, saying, as he did so, in a quaint parody of Sir Philip Sidney, "Pour it into the Manzanares; it needs it more than I do." They do not, however, quite so heartily relish the joke at their own expense which declares that, seeing a pack-saddle lying in the river-bed, they mistook it for a stranded whale!

The elevated position of the city accounts for the great rarity of its atmosphere, and the extreme rapidity and violence of its thermometrical changes. A difference of twenty degrees may often be noted in the temperature of the same

street. On one side the sun blazes down with tropical fury, seeming to scorch and blister the very walls. In the shade, on the other side, a wind will be blowing off the snow-clad Guadarramas of almost icy coldness. It is to the keen piercing quality of the mountain air, together with the rapid and violent vicissitudes of heat and cold, that the great unhealthiness of Madrid is due. The Spaniards, who throw everything into the form of a rude rhyming couplet, have one to the effect that

"The air of Madrid is so subtle and keen

That a life is blown out, whilst a light is left in.”

For my own part I cannot say that I have found the climate of Madrid so

execrable as it is commonly represented to be. The heat is indeed very great. But the atmosphere is dry and bracing. The sultry, debilitating heat of the plains in Seville, for instance, and other cities of Andalusia is far more oppressive. The sudden gusts of keen north-east wind, against which it seems impossible to guard, and the cold nights succeeding to tropical days, are, it must be admitted, very trying even to strong constitutions. Pulmonary affections are common and fatal.

But go

Madrid is generally said to be wanting in picturesqueness and local colour. This is quite true of the Puerta del Sol and the main streets leading out from it-the Calle de Alcalá, and the Calle San Gerónimo, for instance. "The houses which surround the Puerta del Sol," says Mr. Sala, in his very amusing book, From Spain to the Peninsula, "might have been built the day before yesterday. They belong to no particular order of architecture save that very simple style which consists in running up huge blocks of masonry four or five stories high, piercing them with innumerable windows, putting before every window a balcony, and covering every vacant inch of wall up to the sky line with the sign-boards and show-boards of photographers, tailors, milliners, and inn-keepers. But these characteristics are common to the boulevards of Sebastopol and Magenta as well as to the Puerta del Sol; and looking from your window on the buildings which surround you there is absolutely nothing to proclaim that you are in Spain. Many of the show-boards even bear French inscriptions; and one of the sides of a monstrous café between the Calle de Alcalá-the Regent Street-and the Carrera San Gerónimo-the Bond Street of Madrid-proclaims itself to be, in gilt letters a foot long, 'The Imperial Great British Coffee House.' into some of the thoroughfares leading southward from the Plaza Mayor, and there is nothing more intensely Spanish in all Spain. Here are shops windowless and open to the street, like an Oriental bazaar, thronged with peasantry from La Mancha, gipsies from Guadalajara, or smugglers from Andalusia. The other day, passing along a narrow street leading into the Calle del Toledo, the tinkling of a guitar and a pair of castanets caught my ear. It came from a draper's shop, in front of which hangings of purple, crimson, and blue did duty for doors and windows. In the doorway stood a negro and a couple of ugly misshapen dwarfs, playing and singing in order to attract customers. Go down as far as the Puerta del Toledo and peep into the paradors and posadas of the country people. You will scarcely see more picturesque groups, more characteristic costumes, wilder and more unsophisticated Spanish nature at the fair of Ronda itself. Here are a party of muleteers preparing to start, their mules as gay as scarlet worsted and beads can make them; there stands a postilion ready to mount as soon as the mayoral of his diligence shall give the signal; or a gipsy chief up in Madrid on the business of his tribe, which probably has something to do with the sale of stolen horses or of smuggled tobacco. Nor can Seville itself show more picturesque balconies, more brilliant curtains, or more coquettish señoritas than are to be seen in the older parts of the capital.

WANTING IN PICTURESQUENESS.

Madrid is surely the noisiest city in the world. After a considerable experience of the capitals of Europe, I know none to compare with it in the number, the loudness, and the penetrating power of its street cries. In the evening, when the streets are thronged with promenaders, and in the early

morning, when the country people are selling their produce, the clamour is astounding. Sleep is impossible in a room opening upon the Puerta del Sol or any of the streets leading into it. For harshness and persistency perhaps the newspaper sellers carry the palm: Cor-res-pon-den-ci-a-a-a-a, Épo-ca-a-a,

Ig-u-al-d-a-a-a-d, I-be-ri-a-a-a, and a dozen other newspaper titles are shrieked in a high-pitched key, which increases in shrillness and intensity to its close. The water-sellers perhaps come next with their Agua! Agua! quién quiere agua? Agua helada, fresquita como la nieve: "Water! Water! Who wants

water?

Cold water, cold as the snow." The sellers of lucifer matches and cigar-lights push the aguadores hard in numbers and vehemence. And the sellers of lottery-tickets are not far behind them: Hay billetes á ochenta reales,