Travels in Three Continents: Europe, Africa, Asia

By J.M. Buckley

Travels in Three Continents: Europe, Africa, Asia is a traveler's journal of a worldwide voyage during the 19th century.


A table of contents is included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508013853

Book preview

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BY J.M. BUCKLEY

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CHAPTER I.FROM NEW YORK TO THE FRONTIER OF SPAIN

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ACCOMPANIED BY A MEMBER OF the senior class in Amherst College, whom my proposed outline of travel had allured from his studies at the expense of delaying his graduation, at 6:30 on Wednesday morning, November 21, 1888, I sailed for Liverpool, arriving on the seventh day. I contrast that flight with my first voyage to the same port early in 1863, which was fourteen days in length, and advertised in the English papers as a remarkably quick passage.

Five hours after our arrival in Liverpool we were in London, which was enveloped in a dense fog during the forty eight hours of our stay. The business which called us there having been transacted, we hastened to Paris by way of Folkestone and Boulogne. How charming Kent looked as we rode through! The trees not yet denuded of leaves, the farmers plowing, the sheep and cattle on the green hillsides made a true English pastoral scene.

The British Channel, generally vicious, was smooth as a painted ocean. The walk about Paris on Saturday evening showed the same smiling, gossiping, pleasure loving, flippant city as of yore. Sunday was bright, clear, and the air crisp as a New England October day, yet it was a time of apprehension to the citizens, the thirty-seventh anniversary of the coup d’etat. A procession took place under the management of the radical municipal council of Paris, ostensible to strew flowers on the tomb of Alphonse Baudin, a deputy who was shot down upon the barricades on the day when Louis Napoleon transformed the Republic into an Empire.

The procession, which was more than two miles in length, occupied two hours in passing a given point, and a chain of police kept back the crowds estimated at a half million, distributed along the route. Those who were marching did so, for the most part, in absolute silence. There were no arms; there was no instrumental music, though the Marseillaise hymn was frequently sung with spirit.

None of those terrible men with blue blouses, nor of the unwashed sans ulottes, who have figured in mobs, took part in this procession. The only hostile demonstrations were incited by the raising of a socialistic red flag. For a moment the uproar was tremendous, the cries incoherent and furious, the attitudes menacing; men, women, and children fled like sheep; but the police seized the flag and an obnoxious placard, and the tumult subsided.

In the town where I was reared lived a retired sea captain who told me of some of his adventures at Bordeaux, and from then until I visited it the name has had a witching interest for me. I found a city with a quarter of a million of population, connected by water with both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; its streets adorned with noble buildings; its commerce second in volume in France, sustaining the closest commercial relations to the United States, and having a romantic history.

Its wines have made it famous. A writer divides them into five classes as to quality. Half of the best goes to England; Paris takes a second, third, and fourth rate, with a small amount of the best; Russia, considerable of the best; Holland, the second and third; and the United States, the third, fourth, and fifth, with a limited quantity of the best.

Gradually the face of the country became more hilly when, surmounting green valleys upon whose sides sheep and cattle were grazing, arose suddenly above the horizon the long line of the Pyrenees, snow-clad and resplendent in the full flood of sunlight, with here and there a fleecy cloud resting upon their loftiest peaks. A passenger in our compartment, a medical professor in the University of Paris, as the wonderful panorama greeted us, exclaimed: This is my country! I was born in the Hautes-Pyrenees.

Lourdes is in the heart of the Pyrenees, surrounded by mountains, the highest of which glisten by day like ice palaces, are transformed at sunset into burnished pyramids of gold, and into huge lamps of silver when the moonlight whitens them. From a hundred elevations in and around the valley, varying in height from three hundred to three thousand feet, views may be had, any one of which, were it not for the wealth of splendor lavished upon the whole region of the Pyrenees, would make the place attractive to lovers of the beautiful, and a magnet even to those who worship the sublime. From some of these heights I beheld landscapes whose aspect could be so changed as to challenge recognition by a difference of not more than fifty yards in the point of view. We saw remains of walls built by the Romans, and visited a ruined castle which withstood a protracted siege in the time of Charlemagne.

Till about thirty years ago Lourdes had scarcely been heard of; but in the year 1858, eighteen times between February and July, the Holy Virgin, it is alleged, appeared in a grotto at the foot of a rock, to a little peasant girl by the name of Bernadette Soubirous. The child was twelve years old, and her business that of feeding hogs. The substance of what it is claimed was said to her is: I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the other. I desire that many people shall come here. You shall pray for sinners. You shall kiss the ground for sinners. Penitence! Penitence! Penitence! Go, tell the priests that a chapel must be built here. I desire that pilgrims may come here in procession. Go and drink of the fountain, and bathe there. You shall eat of the grass which is near it. I am the Immaculate Conception.

No one except Bernadette could see the vision, but one hundred and fifty thousand visited the grotto during the six months after the first of the visions. When subsequent trances occurred, multitudes of these were present watching the child, whose face, when she said the Virgin appeared, seemed to be glorified by a holy light and beauty entirely unnoticeable at other times, and which continued till the vision fled. To prove her identity, the Virgin caused a spring of water to burst from the earth. It is certain that a spring, previously unnoticed, exists. Cures followed the drinking of the water and bathing in it, and such crowds nocked to the place that the authorities, not believing in the reality of the visions or of the cures, forbade persons to approach the grotto, and would not allow votive offerings placed in the church. But the people continued to come, the bishop of the diocese of Tarbes encouraging them.

Various medical men and other prominent citizens certified to the genuineness of the miracle. Finally Pope Pius IX was persuaded to sanction the opinions of the bishop. Revenues flowed to the church, the town grew rapidly, hotels and pensions were called for to accommodate the pilgrims, thirty or forty thousand sometimes arriving in one day. A handsome church and many other buildings have been constructed, a square laid out, an image erected representing the Virgin as she appeared to the girl, and roads cut through the hills and rocks. We found the church filled with offerings from those helped or cured, or whose friends had been benefited. The grotto, which was formerly called the Grotte de Massavielle, is known as the Grotte de la Vierge (the Virgin).

Kneeling before the image of the Virgin were many pilgrims drinking the water, bottling and carrying it away, and some, both men and women, with outstretched arms, praying with intense earnestness. The town contains the ordinary proportion of cripples, lunatics, sick children, and more than the average number of persistent beggars.

As we were dining in the hotel a nun with attractive manners advanced to the table and inquired if we spoke English. As I was responding in the affirmative she gave us to understand that she could not speak a word of English, and began by signs to beseech us for money to assist in building a hospital to take care of poor pilgrims, aged and abandoned, and the sick who were brought there to drink and wash themselves in the miraculous fountains. She presented a paper stating that no matter how little we might bestow our names would be inscribed in a special register; that if we gave a thousand francs or more our names, with a title of Founder, should be engraved in letters of gold on a marble tablet; five hundred francs would give us the title of Benefactor, a mass would be said once a month in perpetuity, and the poor pray every day for us, and especially would the Blessed Virgin call down upon us the choicest celestial blessings, and God would give it back to us a hundredfold.

We drank of the water at the fountain, but were not a whit the better nor any the worse. It was pure and good, and we brought away a bottle of it.

Only nine miles from Lourdes is Betharram. Its church stands at the foot of a hill, and upon the slope are thirty two praying places, erected of granite, and from the bottom to the top of the long declivity thirty years ago crowds of pilgrims climbed, many upon their knees, pausing for prayer at each place. Numerous cures were reported, but now Lourdes nourishes and Bettharam is almost deserted.

It is so all over Europe under Greek, Roman, Armenian, and Mohammedan forms. The fame of supernatural cures arises, has its brief day, and a new locality or Home takes its turn. Similar traditions, connecting alleged supernatural healings with places, living persons, signs, and relics, have a strong foothold in Protestantism.

From Lourdes to Pau is but twenty-four miles, and the railway runs through the valley of the Gave, making a descent of several hundred feet before this fashionable resort is reached. I cannot conceive a more beautiful region for a pedestrian or equestrian tour. The successive villages with their churches, the diversified hill scenery, with occasional mountain views, the Gave meandering like a silver thread, and occasionally descending rapidly in short cataracts, form a charming picture.

Pau is a watering place, much affected by English and Americans. From the river rises sharply the hill on which the hotels and the city are situated, being more than two hundred and fifty feet in perpendicular height. The square is reached by a winding road. From the chief hotels, Gassion and De France, the western Pyrenees for a distance of fifty or sixty miles are in full view. In the center stand the Pic du Midi de Bigorre in the east, and the Pic du Midi d’Ossau in the west. This splendid view is by some compared to that from the streets of Bern; it does not equal it in grandeur, for the Pyrenees are not sufficiently high and are too near to rival the view of the Bernese Oberland.

The castle, celebrated as the birthplace of Henri of Navarre, is an interesting link between ancient and modern French history. John Calvin, by order of Margaret of Valois, was confined in one of the towers, five of which remain. Had not Calvin been persecuted in France, probably he would not have found his way to Geneva, and the larger part of his history might not have been written. Bernadotte, King of Sweden, was born in Pau, the son of a saddler; he went away as a drummer boy. In the castle are shown fine specimens of Swedish porphyry which he sent while king.

Pau is a delightful place in the winter for the well and those not much indisposed, but too cold and changeable for confirmed invalids.

The situation and fortifications of Bayonne have always made it a place of more than local interest. It is the last important town in France, and in the direct route to Spain. The Adour and Nive come together at this point, three miles from the place where they fall into the Bay of Biscay. They divide the town into three parts, and, with the three bridges, form not only an excellent harbor, but add to the beauty of the city.

After visiting the small but symmetrical cathedral, I explored the fortifications, having a better opportunity for forming an idea of their dimensions than I desired, as I lost my way about sundown and walked two miles in the wrong direction.

The bayonet, now used in every land, takes its name from Bayonne, owing to a circumstance which occurred in 1523. A Basque regiment, in an engagement with the Spaniards, having used up their powder, fastened their knives upon the ends of their muskets and made a successful charge upon the enemy.

It was here that Catherine de’ Medici and the Duke of Alva planned the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but when the order was issued by Charles IX, Orthez, the governor of Bayonne, refused to execute it. Pau, where he was born, boasts of the fact to this day.

Five miles from Bayonne is Biarritz, which was the perfection of beauty on the two days that we were there. It is upon the shore of the Bay of Biscay, whose waters were smooth as glass, clear as crystal, and bright as sunrise. The view was limited on the one side by a long line of mountains, fading away in the blue ether in which blended sea and sky enveloped them. The guide directed our eyes to a lofty summit, and said, France, and pointing to the mountains beyond it, said, Espagne. Standing among the ruins of an old fort on the promontory of Atalye, we saw the bay, bounded on the right by Cape St. Martin, and on the left by the coast of Spain.

Biarritz has become a fashionable resort; the hotels are among the finest in France. The Empress Eugenie loved the place, having been in the habit of visiting it when a young girl. Her imperial husband and herself occupied an unpretending brick chateau there, now the only lion of the place. I should advise every American, who is an enthusiastic lover of natural scenery and traveling for pleasure, to visit Biarritz.

CHAPTER II.I TAKE MY JOURNEY INTO SPAIN

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SPAIN! ANCIENT, PROUD, FIERY; PITILESS in victory, revengeful in defeat; romantic, fanatical, converting into an opiate recollections of past glory; though swept within a few years by gusts of liberal sentiment, still the stronghold of ecclesiastical intolerance, cruelty, and superstition; home of orators, lovers, and beautiful women; paradise of priests, in strange contrast with a crushed and ignorant peasantry, aristocracy of nobles and beggars! Spain! offspring of Asia, mother of America, twin sister of Africa, gives rise to more problems and sets the fancy more free than any other domain in Europe except Russia.

These questions and fancies had fermented in my brain for years. Washington Irving planted the germs and William H. Prescott watered them, and when I crossed the frontier Don Quixote stepped forward to meet me. Sancho Panza I found not, for, as a Spaniard of refinement and intelligence informed me, the whole people are Don Quixotes, but not more than one or two such practical, sensible, and simple-hearted creatures can be found as the man who said Blessings on him who invented sleep.

We entered the country through the Spanish Basque provinces. After leaving Hendaye, we crossed the Bidassoa which separates France and Spain.

At Irun, the first town in Spain, we were detained two hours for the customhouse inspection. Americans, with their protective tariff, should be the last to find fault with the examinations of other countries.

Our baggage was promptly dispatched, without any disposition on the part of the Spanish officer to annoy us. The time was improved by enjoying the beautiful scenery, and observing some lay brothers of a monastery, with their sandals and stockingless feet, gray suits, heavy beards, and characteristic Spanish costumes. Caballeros slowly pacing the station in their highly ornamented cloaks, the officers in uniform, and a hundred things besides, showed that we were in a country of peculiar customs and speech.

San Sebastian, the capital of the province of Guipuzcoa, was the first important place visited. Established at the Hotel de Londres (where they speak little or no English), we called upon the Rev. William H. Gulick, who is the son of a missionary and born in the Sandwich Islands. Mrs. Gulick is a daughter of Dr. Gordon, long the treasurer of the American Board.

The town is built on an isthmus between two bays and is at the foot of Monte Orgullo. The sun being still high, Mr. Gulick proposed a visit to the castle. En route thereto we saw a circular edifice, twenty-five feet in height and several hundred in diameter, large enough to hold three or four thousand persons. It was a bull ring, as important in the estimation of the people as the cathedral, the theater, or the municipal building. After passing it we began the ascent of the mountain upon which stands the castle La Mota.

We could see the Spanish and French Pyrenees and old forts at remote points along the horizon; villages dimly visible in ravines, or sparkling in the sunlight upon the hilltops, while before us was the Bay of Biscay.

As an expositor of the history of the castle and the sieges it has sustained, Mr. Gulick was to standard histories what an eloquent teacher is to text-books. He conducted us to the spot where, in 1813, the British forces, under the Duke of Wellington, assaulted the city, which was garrisoned by three thousand French veterans, under General Rey. They succeeded in taking the main works and town, but the French entrenched themselves strongly in the upper citadel, where they remained until August 31, when the English soldiers climbed over the perpendicular wall and forced a surrender. Quebec and Lookout Mountain on this side of the Atlantic furnish analogies. A number of the British officers are buried on the hillside.

The journey of half a day from the frontier of Spain to Burgos, the ancient capital of Castile and Leon, revealed a panorama of wild mountain scenery and a corresponding triumph of engineering. The road ascends three thousand feet. A hundred mountains were to be tunneled, climbed, or circled. Five, seven, nine, and, in one instance, fourteen tunnels were passed between two stations. Great granite masses, in sharp contrast with brown hills, loftier peaks covered with snow, with the sun set or shining as the eye rested upon one or another summit, made a scene of splendid confusion.

Long after dark we reached the dimly lighted station of Burgos. Damp was the night; chilling to body and soul the gloom; depressing the mephitic vapors. The Spanish guests in the hotel were happy; they smoked and drank incessantly, and probably smelled nothing but their tobacco and liquors. The city is a thousand years old, and looks every day of it. The next day was stormy, but having procured a carriage drawn by a pair of powerful mules, we drove two and a half miles along the river Arlanzon to the Cartuja de Miraflores, a monastery of the Carthusian order, built by Queen Isabella as a monument to her parents. As Americans we were quite willing to pay a tribute to her ancestry.

The sepulcher is a noble specimen of tomb sculpture, octagonal, with lions at the corners, and on the sides are illustrations from the New Testament. Upon the top, in a recumbent posture, are the statues of Don Juan II and his wife, Isabella of Portugal. In a recess Alphonso, who died in 1470, aged sixteen, and without whose death Isabella never could have been queen, is represented kneeling amid sculptured foliage.

The monks performed service after having, with many apologies, explained to an English lady that it was against the rules of the order for a woman to be present. We remained, but envied the woman who was not permitted to stay, for a more melancholy piece of droning never fell upon human ears.

Emerging from this monastery, where fifteen or twenty monks occupy accommodations originally provided for two hundred, living upon gifts and pay for masses, we drove to the convent of Las Huelgas—the pleasure ground. It is a nunnery of the Cistercian order, founded seven hundred years ago by Alfonso VIII to expiate his sins and to please his queen, Eleanor, a daughter of Henry II, of England. Here various kings of Castile were knighted, and many kings and queens are buried. To this day the nuns must belong to the nobility and bring a dowry. We saw seven during the performance of the mass. They were in middle life, stout, handsome, tastefully dressed, and in the magnificent carved stalls, presented a tableau vivaut more beautiful than most of the works of art which adorn the picture galleries. The ladies who had been forbidden to hear the service by the monks here had their revenge, for the nave, chapter house, and roraanesque nuns’ cloister are not accessible to men, though women, duly introduced, are admitted.

The bones of the Cid (pronounced Thith by the purists of old Castile), Don Rodrigo Ruy Diaz de Bavar, the most prominent hero of Spanish history, are shown in the town hall. He vanquished the Moors, and was considered the mightiest warrior of Christianity. The Moors gave him the name of the Cid after he had overthrown five kings. The legends told of him are monstrous; among others, that after he died a Jew approached his corpse, saying: No one dared to touch his body while he was living, I will see what he can do now; whereupon the dead hand pulled the sword from the scabbard, at which the Jew fainted.

The symmetry, beauty, and impressiveness of the Cathedral of Burgos surpass description. Strength and delicacy are so united that the charm and fragrance of flowers are blended with the massiveness of a giant tree. Within it is three hundred and fifty feet long; the transept two hundred and fifty in width and one hundred and ninety-five in height. The style is Gothic; the side chapels and adjacent rooms are twenty in number, some being as large as ordinary churches; the ornamentation is diversified and exquisite; the choir contains one hundred and three stalls, carved in walnut; every chapel is filled with paintings, sculptures, ornaments. A mere catalogue of the statues, windows, arabesques, arches, sculptured tombs of princes and bishops, pilasters, gratings, angels, saints, bas-reliefs, niches, and wonderful works of art without description would require a chapter.

We ascended the lofty hill to the castle—an ancient fortification almost in ruins. From the parapets the finest view of the cathedral is obtained. Upon the horizon are convents, monasteries, and other buildings. The more distant prospect, though grand, is desolate. In neither mountain nor hill, valley nor plain can a tree be seen, except along the paths to the convents. Having entered without permission, we were advancing to the highest point of view when a soldier ordered us out of the castle. As we were about passing through the gateway a tall, stern-looking officer appeared. I bowed and said to him, Americano. He sent a subaltern for his cloak, put it on with dignity, and said, America Nord? To which we responded, New York. You-would-see-the-castle? Then with the air of Don Quixote giving an order to Sancho Panza, he waved his hand majestically toward the interior, and we returned, none daring to molest us, or make us afraid.

CHAPTER III.THE SPANISH CAPITAL

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MADRID IS A CITY WITH an independent character, though resembling Paris in several features. It was hardly daylight on a rainy morning when we arrived. The chill, the darkness, and the streets, deserted by all except cabmen and venders of milk and vegetables, were gloomy; but a cup of Spanish chocolate and a French roll made a great difference in the aspect of the city, and while breakfast was preparing the people had begun to swarm like bees from their hives. The crack of countless whips, cries of newsboys, hurrying to and fro of clerks, mingling with a ceaseless procession of donkeys, carts, and coaches, transformed the silent streets into a battlefield of daily life.

A thousand years ago the now treeless plains about Madrid were covered with forests. Like the people of the United States, the inhabitants improvidently cut them down, to the injury of the climate and of the healthfulness of the region. The river on which the city is situated is dry except during short intervals, and the annual fall of rain is but about ten inches. Madrid rests on the roof of several hills, about twenty-five hundred feet above the sea level, and was selected as the capital because in the very center of Spain. From the streets was a magnificent prospect of the Sierra Guadarrama, and of the mountains of Toledo; the former were snow-clad from their summits two thirds of the way down to the plateau.

Most of the houses are high, and are occupied in apartments or fiats. Some of the streets and certain squares and promenades are handsome. The Puerta del Sol, enthusiastically praised by travelers, requires sunlight and a crowd to appear at its best. At 4 p. m. on a bright day it is impossible to conceive anything more animated; neither London nor New York can exhibit such brightness of aspect, such hastening but not hurrying crowds, such sparkling conversation, so constant an interchange of civilities. All the lines of street railways meet there; every business place of importance is in the vicinity, the large hotels, and some of the leading public buildings.

The grand square is the Plaza Major. In the center is an equestrian statue of Philip III. The mob pulled it down in 1873, when the red Republic reigned, but it has been replaced. Charles I, of England, went down to Madrid to see a bullfight given in his honor by Philip III, and it took place in this square; but while such displays may only make it contemptible, the autos-da-fe celebrated there render it infamous.

El Prado at fashionable hours enables its visitors to see the largest number. Spaniards always seem to be the gayest of European peoples on such occasions.

The royal palace is a truly royal residence, but stands in such an exposed place that in winter the sentinels are often nearly frozen. We paid particular attention to the royal chapel, a splendid room, wonderfully decorated, and containing a valuable collection of ecclesiastical objects. In the library are many historical manuscripts and a prayer book said to have belonged to Ferdinand and Isabella.

At the window of the Hall of Ambassadors we saw the little king, a happy-looking child. Whether the monarchy will fall before he comes of age and ascends the throne; whether he will ascend it and be dethroned as was his grandmother, the still living ex-queen Isabella; whether he will be assassinated, or have a long and peaceful reign, the wisest statesman can forecast no more clearly than this boy.

As we were leaving the palace the review of the regiment which was that day to be stationed there took place. The average height of the soldiers was apparently not more than five feet seven inches; the officers were taller; the uniform was new and gay; the bearing graceful and erect, though they did not keep step with the accuracy which we have seen in other lands. The music to which they marched was peculiarly melodious and rhythmical.

The royal picture gallery, the Museo, is the one institution of Madrid whose contents successfully challenge competition. Among the Italian masters, Correggio, Bassanno, Titian, and Raphael are represented; Titian by twenty of his works, and Raphael by a considerable number. The Dutch, French, and German, and also the Flemish schools are illustrated by their best names. We recognized the familiar work of Philip Wouverman, in all of whose paintings the white horse appears. In St. Petersburg I saw two of his pictures, considered as curiosities because without that symbolic animal. But it is in the Spanish school that this collection, containing many of the masterpieces of Murillo, Velasquez, and Alonzo Cano, surpasses the other galleries of Europe.

We spent a considerable portion of a day there, and of the Spanish pictures those that left the deepest impression upon my eye and memory are: An auto-da-fe, celebrated in the Plaza Major of Madrid, June 30, 1680. The king, with his wife and mother, looks from a balcony; victims are led before him to hear their sentences; a friar is preaching to those to be burned, and the grandees of Spain are spectators; in the foreground are the asses on which the doomed are taken to the place of execution. The other is the figure of Aesop, which some say looks more like a shirtless cobbler than a philosopher; a superficial remark, for some shirtless cobblers have been philosophers, notably Samuel Drew, the metaphysician. Cobblers in all ages have furnished original and learned men, noted as fine conversers as well as clear thinkers, and they have often been concerned in revolutions.

On ordinary occasions order in the streets of Madrid is noticeably good. The police force is large, well organized, and supplemented by various officials who add dignity and force to the public exhibition of authority. Drunkenness is comparatively rare, and no cases of gross intemperance are seen during the day. But the capital is liable to outbreaks difficult to be suppressed without bloodshed, which the memory of recent revolutions should make very unpopular.

The then recent ministerial crisis, regarded with interest throughout the civilized world, was attributed chiefly to the violent demonstrations against Senor Canovas on his return to Madrid from the south a short time before, the charge being made that the Liberal government promoted the manifestations to make impossible the return of the Conservatives to power, and to impress the queen with the impolicy of exhibiting sympathy with them. The crisis was announced three days before we reached Madrid. All meetings of the Cortes were suspended. It seemed improbable that I should have the opportunity of looking upon a body famed throughout the world for Ciceronian eloquence and outbursts of personal and partisan feeling.

E. H. Strobel, Esq., Charge d’Affaires, and then acting minister of the United States, courteously gave me the use of the only seat at his disposal in the Tribune Diplomatique, and promised to keep me advised of the time when the crisis should be resolved, and a new ministry appointed.

In Spain a ministerial crisis is not brought about merely by the defeat of the government in the House of Deputies or Commons, but occurs when any considerable number of the ministry resign, or on account of public disapprobation, personal incompatibility, or for other reasons, it is necessary to make serious changes. At an early hour on Tuesday morning information came that at midnight a new ministry had been formed. This meant that at the regular hour that afternoon the Cortes would reassemble.

A long address from Senor Sagasta, the prime minister, opened the business. I looked with interest upon him, remembering when he was condemned to death, and compelled to flee to England, whence he returned after the Revolution to assume the position of Minister of the Interior. He set forth the causes of the crisis, and congratulated the House on the formation of a ministry. As a speaker, he was plain, forcible, epigrammatic, courteous. Don Francisco Silvela, second in position and repute as an orator among the Conservatives, replied. His style was rhythmical, highly rhetorical, occasionally epigrammatic. He essayed to show that the government was responsible for, or at least indifferent to, the outrages perpetrated upon himself and Senor Canovas in the streets of Madrid a few weeks previously. Sagasta answered at length, minifying the disturbance, and declaring that the government had no intimation of it, and did its best to suppress it; he playfully insinuated that the Conservatives must not be too sensitive; they had had much approbation elsewhere, and should bear rebuffs more patiently. While he was speaking Canovas rose and said: I will take the word. He is an orator of the highest grade, erect, graceful, self-poised, and roused the House to shouts of applause and murmurs of disapprobation. Castelar showed marked interest, but did not speak. Baldheaded, good-humored, he belongs to the class of men who do not exhibit in repose the elements of greatness. It was midnight when the session closed.

Desiring to see where the few Protestants in Madrid worshiped, we went one Sabbath morning to the mission of the United Presbyterian Church, over which the Rev. John Jameson, of Scotland, has presided for nearly twenty years. Presbyterianism finds it expedient to adopt in Spain quite an extended liturgy, but its traditional long prayer was not omitted. The congregation numbered one hundred and seventy-five. The choir was composed of fifty children, who furnished a volume of melody almost sufficient to drown the organ, but did not prevent us from hearing the peculiar penetrating voice of an assistant who kept the children in concert to an unusual degree.

After the opening services this assistant, Don Cipriano Tornos, ascended the pulpit and preached. He had been a Catholic priest of such distinction as to rise to the position of preacher at the Spanish court; was hardly excelled in popularity by any priest in Madrid; but fifteen years before, with no charge against him and with every desired

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