Everywhere the harvest was in progress, to furnish us a lovely landscape. About mid-day we crossed the Guadalquivir by a fine bridge, and at Palma we met an old acquaintance in the Genil, which flows into it. Near Almadovar, an old Moorish castle shut in by two great rocks, the country became wild and picturesque. Then the valley widened out, and to the left we saw rounded hills studded with castles and villas, and crowned with wood. By one o'clock we had arrived at the station of Cordova, at the end of the Alameda, through whose avenues we entered the old Arab town. The streets leading to our hotel, although among the best, were so narrow that those persons walking had to squeeze themselves into doorways to avoid being crushed. Cordova, the most important town in Spain at the time of the Cæsars, is now the most desolate; it contains no more than 50,000 inhabitants, and has little influence, although at one time its schools and colleges were very considerable. The mosque is now the most attractive feature; but all symmetry is lost, in consequence of the Christian church raised in the middle by Charles V. The Arab sanctuary, the holy of holies, is a most complete specimen of Moorish architecture; a dome of dazzling marble overshadows it, supported by slender pillars. The walls are painted and gilt in arabesque, letters of gilt glass forming verses of the Koran. The vestibule of this holy of holies is composed of columns with double arches of pure white marble. We climbed up to the old castle, now in ruins, and occupied only as a prison, to enjoy the broad prospect there opened. Several old-fashioned mills stand upon the islands, to be set in motion by the Guadalquivir, while farther on an ancient bridge spans the stream. I made my way there in the twilight with some difficulty, and obtained a pleasant view of the town, and the cathedral and mosque commanding it. A massive stone gate shut me off from the other side of the bridge. During this nocturnal expedition I passed several open squares in which stood huge gilt or bronze statues of the Archangel Raphael, the patron of Cordova. The time devoted to our travels in Andalusia would run out in a few hours, and we had still to return to Madrid, so that anything remarkable that remained to be seen we had to leave unseen. We left Cordova at eleven o'clock, and being fatigued by the brilliant day, we gave ourselves up to sleep; but whenever passing through a street we were rudely awakened by the bumps and joltings incidental to an ill-laid pavement, for there is no greater contrast than the excellent highways and infamous streets of every town in Spain. Towards morning we entered Andujar, situated on the Guadalquivir, in a beautiful smiling country. Everybody was in the market-place, and our diligence was surrounded by troops of beggars as we changed horses. The sun burnt with fierceness, and the dust began for the first time to annoy us. Leaving Andujar, the road ascended a steep hill, and we bade adieu to the valley of the Guadalquivir. To the south was the chain of Jaen: above it towered the Sierra Nevada, while to the north rose the brown hills of the Sierra Morena. At about ten o'clock we stopped at the posada on the battle-field of Bailen. The sum of ten reals which we paid for the use of a room in which to wash and dust ourselves, did not succeed in winning the favour of the He host, who was much displeased at our refusal of breakfast; but the viands that were carried past us from the kitchen by two or three slatternly maids, were not calculated to please the keenest appetite with their smell of oil and garlic. We were now once more in the country through which we had previously travelled. At Carolina there was a mass, and we had to make a détour through the outskirts to avoid the throng of people. I should have liked to mix among the crowd, but we stopped only to change horses. We crossed the Sierra Morena without accident, chasing several diligences down the Questa de Santa Helena, where, a few days before, the King of Portugal had been overturned. I asked our mayoral why he did not remain a little behind, as the dust was twice as painful as it need be in consequence of our close proximity to the other carriages, and the chance of accident made greater during a descent. answered, that it was the custom to keep in company; but I can find no reason for this, in our enlightened times of gendarmes. At four o'clock we reached Santa Cruz de la Mudela. We had refreshed ourselves during the day with pressed meat, chocolate, cakes, and bread, intending to procure a dinner at the excellent buffet at the station of Alcazar de San Juan. What was our surprise, therefore, when we drove up to a posada in the clay wall of this nest of houses, the mayoral coolly telling us that we had just time to dine there before the train started, this kind of conspiracy between the postboys and the hotels being in full force; not that they expect anything from Spaniards, but foreigners must pay full tribute. We got out and went at once to the rooms provided with brushes, water, and everything necessary for the cleansing process; but after what we had seen at Bailen, we could not make up our minds to dine. Our “ vamos a comer" was, however, incomprehensible to the pretty pert attendant, and she came a second time to announce dinner. I simply shook my head; and this, together with the apparition of my daughter eating oranges, forced the unpleasant truth upon her, and she retired frowning. In the hall we found the landlord evidently amazed at our obstinacy, as the mayoral would of course inform them that we had had no breakfast. The girl, who was carrying a couple of really wellroasted fowls, cried: "Esta fonda es muy buena no es fonda como en Bailen," while beneath the balcony were all the hopeful youths in the population discussing the great event, and we got into the diligence under a formidable array of eyes. While we were watching the sun go down behind the brown waves of La Mancha, the train came up, and we took our departure. Late at night we refreshed ourselves as well as we could at Alcazar de San Juan, then got into the carriages from Alicante, and at nine o'clock arrived in Madrid, after twelve days spent in the most delightful districts of beautiful Spain. "no TO MARY. "C'est sur toi que j'ai réuni toutes les affections que j'avais perdues; c'est toi que mon cœur a fait héritier de tous les sentimens qu'il connut jamais.”—GONSALVE DE CORDOVA. My Mary, when each summer flower Is blooming in its pride again, A wanderer into paradise! Though here, when friends around I see, For when my heart's fresh prospects seemed Which, when all other flowers depart, Which seem'd in Hope's wreath braided, And like a spirit lingers yet, Now all the rest have faded? Oh no! the heart which is the seat Its fragile pulse may cease to beat, It is eternal as the soul, And lives and blooms beyond the grave— It is a link of pleasure's chain, A never-dying token, Whose lustre and whose strength remain When all save that are broken! V. D. THE FRANCO-AUSTRIAN ALLIANCE. Ir is related that when the last of the kings of Lombardy-Didier -saw from the walls of Pavia the army of Charlemagne extending round as far as the eye could reach, and its appearance rendered still more formidable from the armour glistening in the sun, "Ferrum! ferrum! eheu ferrum!" he exclaimed in his agony. Such is the attitude of Europe in the present day. Wherever we turn our eyes nothing is to be seen but arms and armaments, and the most civilised portion of the earth's surface has become one common field for hostilities. It is high time that an end should come to such an unnatural and un-Christianlike state of things; but that happy conclusion seems to be as far off as it was in the days of Charlemagne, Charles V., or Napoleon I. Philosophers may write; no one attends to them. Victor Cousin, commenting upon Adam Smith, said: "A nation is as one individual. Europe is one and the same people, of which the different nations are the provinces; and all humanity is only one and the same nation, which ought to be ruled by the law of any wellordered nation—that is to say, the law of justice, which is the law of liberty. Policy is distinct from morality, but it cannot be opposed to it. For what are all the inhuman and tyrannical maxims of a superannuated policy in the presence of the great laws of an eternal morality? At the risk of being taken for what I am-that is to say, for a philosopher-I declare that I cherish hopes of seeing a government gradually formed in Europe after the fashion of the government which the French Revolution gave to France. The Holy Alliance which sprung up years ago between the kings of Europe is a happy seed which the future will develop, not only in the profit of peace, so excellent in itself, but in the profit of justice and European liberty." Another philosopher well known to Europe-Michel Chevalier-also avers that in our times French working men and peasants have laid aside aggressive dispositions against foreigners. The workman and the peasant, he says, no longer permit themselves to be looked upon as mere food for powder, or tolerate that an ambitious government should have the right to send them to the shambles merely to carry out their ideas. It is not they who would say " Morituri te salutant" unless the safety of the country or its dignity demanded that it should make great sacrifices. There is no doubt that all Europe, amid the clash of arms and the cementing of warlike alliances, is pervaded, to a certain extent, by the same spirit. The working classes and the peasantry of all countries alike have learnt to appreciate the benefits of peace, to bless it as the means of progress, as the palladium of the national liberties which constitute its guarantee, and as the beneficent genius under whose auspices they can, by energetic efforts, obtain their share in the moral and material benefits of civilisation. They are no longer ignorant of the great fact that they, more than any others, have to bear the great burden of war. Yet does the senator and philosopher-Michel Chevalier-himself admit that in France, were it necessary, it would only require to stamp upon the ground in order that there should arise from it an innumerable and devoted body of workmen and peasants, who would hurry to the frontier as all France did in the days of Valmy, Jemmapes, and Fleurus. Strange inconsistency of human nature, which knows, admits, and argues upon the blessings of peace and the injustice and curse of war, and is still so much under the influence of the lower instincts as to be ever ready at a moment's notice to cast away the fruits of thought, wisdom, and toil, for the sake of indulgence in the wayward passions of the fight! It would have been thought that Austria, above all other countries, humbled by defeat and shorn of its finest provinces in Germany and Italy, and forced to lean upon its Magyar and Slavonian populations, would have wished for peace to recruit its political well-being, to bring about cohesion among its people, to repair its finances, and to reorganise its means of defence or offence. Austria was just arriving at that long-sought-for epoch in her financial history when its paper money, having attained a value nearly at par with a regular currency, it was about to be done away with altogether. But the breaking out of war at once threw her back to her original bad financial condition, and paper money fell with a movement that has ever since gone on increasing, just as it did in America in the time of the civil war. States which adopt a paper currency always find it much more difficult to contract loans than others. Hence Prussia, whose finances are in a better condition, enjoys unbounded credit. But people decline to lend to Austria, because they do not know what they have to rely upon, while national finances will advance but little, and that only in exchange for privileges and advantages which are not only excessively onerous to government, but tend to increase existing evils by introducing further elements of difficulty and disorder in the whole financial system. Labour and taxation are alike affected; produce diminishes, for the working classes are uncertain of payment, and taxation diminishes with a general scarcity, the whole nation languishing in idleness and poverty. It is Austria is unquestionably possessed of a constitution sufficiently robust to be able to resist such trials for a long period of time. not, indeed, the first time that the sovereign and the people have suffered together. The communion in a happy or miserable existence between the house of Austria and its subjects has stood the test of ages. Austria differs in this respect from Italy, where the community of feeling in times of happiness and distress dates but of yesterday, and the strength of these ties have not yet been satisfactorily tried. But even in Austria it is difficult to say how long this state of things can endure. When governments have exhausted all regular resources, they have infallibly recourse to requisitions and exactions, all legitimate means having previously failed. The form and character of these spoliations varies with the genius of the financier of the day, but the basis of such proceedings remains always the same—that is to say, they repose upon violence and tyranny. As people get more and more with the lapse of time to appreciate the blessings of peace, and to understand that they must pay in their persons, their means, their property, and their very toil, all the expenses and sacrifices of war, so will they also become more and more averse to submitting to those |