the _calesas_ above cited, is either too weak to be useful, or lags behind, or fairly turns tail. To which prudent course it is more than suspected that the faithless guards, who are mostly pardoned robbers, are frequently stimulated by promise of a share of the spoil. Nor are they, if all tales be true, the only class in Spain whose duty it is to protect the public, and who foully betray their trust. During this present year of 1849, cited as so prosperous a one in Spain, robberies in the capital, and on the roads within a radius of twenty leagues around it, have been so numerous and audacious, and perpetrated with such impunity, that the finger of public suspicion has pointed very high, and the strangest tales--which to English ears would sound incredible--have been circulated of the collusion of personages whose rank and position would, in any other country, preclude the idea of participation, however secret and indirect, in gains so lawless and iniquitous. But in this, as in many other matters peculiar to the Peninsula, although the few may be convinced, the many will always doubt, and proof it is of course scarcely possible to obtain. In so extensive and thinly peopled a land as Spain, and which has been so long a prey to civil war and insurrection, security of travelling in rural districts, and on cross roads, is only to be obtained by increased cultivation of the soil, and by improving the condition of the peasantry. But in the capital, and on the roads leading to it, and in the towns and villages, some degree of law and order might be expected to prevail. A glance at the Spanish papers, any time for the last six months, proves the contrary to be the case. Their columns are filled with accounts of atrocious assassinations and barefaced robberies in the very streets of Madrid; of diligences stopped, and travellers plundered and abused; of farmers and others carried off to the mountains in open day, and detained until ransomed; and with letters from all parts of the country, complaining of the insecurity of life and property, and of the sluggishness and inefficiency of the authorities. Such statements are of course rarely admitted into the ministerial prints, to read which one would imagine that the very last malefactor in the country had just fallen into the hands of the _guardias civiles_, and that a virgin might conduct a gold-laden mule from Santander to Cadiz, unguarded and unmolested. [2] _The Cities and Wilds of Andalusia._ By the Honourable R. DUNDAS MURRAY. London: 1849.