First and foremost among these refuges for the destitute comes the _fonda_, the hotel. This, as the name implies, is a foreign thing, and was imported from Venice, which in its time was the Paris of Europe, the leader of sensual civilization, and the sink of every lie and iniquity. Its _fondacco_, in the same manner, served as a model for the Turkish _fondack_. The _fonda_ is only to be found in the largest towns and principal seaports, where the presence of foreigners creates a demand and supports the establishment. To it frequently is attached a café, or “_botilleriá_,” a bottlery and a place for the sale of liqueurs, with a “_neveria_,” a snowery where ices and cakes are supplied. Men only, not horses, are taken in at a _fonda_; but there is generally a keeper of a stable or of a minor inn in the vicinity, to which the traveller’s animals are consigned. The _fonda_ is tolerably furnished in reference to the common articles with which the sober unindulgent natives are contented: the traveller in his comparisons must never forget that Spain is not England, which too few ever can get out of their heads. Spain is Spain, a truism which cannot be too often repeated; and in its being Spain consists its originality, its raciness, its novelty, its idiosyncrasy, its best charm and interest, although the natives do not know it, and are every day, by a foolish aping of European civilization, paring away attractions, and getting commonplace, unlike themselves, and still more unlike their Gotho-Moro and most picturesque fathers and mothers. Monks, as we said in our preface, are gone, mantillas are going, the shadow of cotton _versus_ corn has already darkened the sunny city of Figaro, and the end of all Spanish things is coming. _Ay! de mi España!_