For my own part, I freely confess, that not even our English modes of "getting over the ground" have such charms for me, as the tripping and stumbling of one's horse over a Spanish _trocha_[13]--I take no delight in being dragged through the country at the rate of a mile a minute, powdered with soot, (pardon the bull) suffocated with steam, and sickened with grease. Neither does our steady ten mile an hour stage-coach travelling find much favour in mine eyes; though I grant it is now most admirably conducted, the _comforts_ of the old "slow coaches" being so happily blended with the accelerated _speed_ called for in this progressive age, that a change of horses is effected in less than one minute, and a feed of passengers in something under ten!--But I always pity the victims of this unwholesome alliance of comfort and celerity.--Observe that fidgety old gentleman, muzzled in a red worsted _comforter_, and crowned with a Welsh wig. Having started without breakfast, or at most with but half of one, he counts impatiently the minutes and milestones that intervene between him and the dining-place; arrived there, if five minutes before the appointed time, every thing is underdone; if five minutes after, a deduction of equal amount is made in the time allowed for despatching the viands. Swallowing, therefore, in all haste the indigestible roast pork and parboiled potatoes that are placed before him, he resumes his seat in or upon the vehicle, declaring--whilst the unwholesome food sticking in his throat nearly chokes him--that he "_feels all the better_" for his _dinner!_ soon after which, with a flushed face and quickened pulse, he drops into a feverish slumber, dreaming of mad bulls and carniverous swine, sloe juice and patent brandy. Towards midnight, the announcement of "a quarter of an hour, gentlemen" (meaning something less than half that time), relieves him from these painful reminiscences, affording an opportunity of washing them down with some scalding liquid, which, though bearing the name of tea or coffee, is a decoction of some deleterious plant or berry, that certainly never basked under the sun of China or Arabia Felix.