figures, now dark in shadows, now crimsoned by the fire flash, flit to and fro in the vaporous mist. The scene never fails to rivet and enchant the stranger, who, coming from the pale north and the commonplace in-door flail, seizes at once all the novelty of such doings. Eye and ear, open and awake, become inlets of new sensations of attention and admiration, and convey to heart and mind the poetry, local colour, movement, grouping, action, and attitude. But while the cold-blooded native of leaden skies is full of fire and enthusiasm, his Spanish companion, bred and born under unshorn beams, is chilly as an icicle, indifferent as an Arab: he passes on the other side, not only not admiring, but positively ashamed; he only sees the barbarity, antiquity, and imperfect process; he is sighing for some patent machine made in Birmingham, to be put up in a closed barn after the models approved of by the Royal Agricultural Society in Cavendish Square; his bowels yearn for the appliances of civilization by which “bread stuffs” are more scientifically manipulated and manufactured, minus the poetry. To return, however, to dry bread, after this new digression, and all those who have ever been in Spain, or have ever written on Spanish things, must feel how difficult it is to keep regularly on the road without turning aside at every moment, now to cull a wild flower, now to pick up a sparkling spar. This corn, so beaten, is very carefully ground, and in La Mancha in those charming windmills, which, perched on eminences to catch the air, look to this day, with their outstretched arms, like Quixotic giants; the flour is passed through several hoppers, in order to secure its fineness. The dough is most carefully kneaded, worked, and re-worked, as is done by our biscuit-makers; hence the close-grained, caky, somewhat heavy consistency of the crumb, whereas, according to Pliny, the Romans esteemed Spanish bread on account of its lightness. [Sidenote: LUNCHEON.]