All who ride or run through the Peninsula, will read thirst in the arid plains, and hunger in the soil-denuded hills, where those who ask for bread will receive stones. The knife and fork question has troubled every warrior in Spain, from Henri IV. down to Wellington; “subsistence is the great difficulty always found” is the text of a third of the Duke’s wonderful despatches. This scarcity of food is implied in the very name of Spain, Σπανια, which means poverty and destitution, as well as in the term _Bisoños_, wanters, which long has been a synonyme for Spanish soldiers, who are always, as the Duke described them, “hors de combat,” “always _wanting_ in every thing at the critical moment.” Hunger and thirst have ever been, and are, the best defenders of the Peninsula against the invader. On sierra and steppe these gaunt sentinels keep watch and ward, and, on the scarecrow principle, protect this paradise, as they do the infernal regions of Virgil-- “Malesuada fames et turpis egestas Horribiles visu.” A riding tour through Spain has already been likened to serving a campaign; and it was a saying of the Grand Condé, “If you want to know what want is, carry on a war in Spain.” Yet, notwithstanding the thousands of miles which we have ridden, never have we yet felt that dire necessity, which has been kept at a respectable distance by a constant unremitting attention to the proverb, A man forewarned is forearmed. _Hombre prevenido nunca fu vencido_, there is nothing like precaution and _provision_. “If you mean to dine,” writes the all-providing Duke to Lord Hill from Moraleja, “_you had better bring your things_, as I shall have nothing with me;”--the ancient Bursal fashion holds good on Spanish roads:-- “Regula Bursalis est omni tempere talis, Prandia fer tecum, si vis comedere mecum.” [Sidenote: EATING ON THE ROAD.] A man who is prepared, is never beaten or starved; therefore, as the valorous Dalgetty has it, a prudent man will always victual himself in Spain with vivers for three days at least, and his cook, like Sancho Panza, should have nothing else in his head, but thoughts how to convey the most eatables into his ambulant larder.