Since the death of Ferdinand VII. marvellous improvements have taken place in some _fondas_. In the changes and chances of the multitudinous revolutions, all parties ruled in their rotation, and then either killed or banished their opponents. Thus royalists, liberals, patriots, moderates, &c., each in their turn, have been expatriated; and as the wheel of fortune and politics went round, many have returned to their beloved Spain from bitter exile in France and England. These travellers, in many cases, were sent abroad for the public good, since they were thus enabled to discover that some things were better managed on the other side of the water and Pyrenees. Then and there suspicion crossed their minds, although they seldom will admit it to a foreigner, that Spain was not altogether the richest, wisest, strongest, and first of nations, but that she might take a hint or two in a few trifles, among which perhaps the accommodations for man and beast might be included. The ingress, again, of foreigners by the facilities offered to travellers by the increased novelties of steamers, mails, and diligences necessarily called for more waiters and inns. Every day, therefore, the fermentation occasioned by the foreign leaven is going on; and if the national _musto_, or grape-juice, be not over-drugged with French brandy, something decent in smell and taste may yet be produced. [Sidenote: THE POSADA.] In the seaports and large towns on the Madrid roads the twilight of café and cuisine civilization is breaking from La belle France. Monastic darkness is dispelled, and the age of convents is giving way to that of kitchens, while the large spaces and ample accommodations of the suppressed monasteries suggest an easy transition into “first-rate establishments,” in which the occupants will probably pay more and pray less. News, indeed, have just arrived from Malaga, that certain ultra-civilized hotels are actually rising, to be defrayed by companies and engineered by English, who seem to be as essential in regulating these novelties on the Continent as in the matters of railroads and steamboats. Rooms are to be papered, brick floors to be exchanged for boards, carpets to be laid down, fireplaces to be made, and bells are to be hung, incredible as it may appear to all who remember Spain as it was. They will ring the knell of nationality; and we shall be much mistaken if the grim old Cid, when the first one is pulled at Burgos, does not answer it himself by knocking the innovator down. Nay, more, for wonders never cease; vague rumours are abroad that secret and solitary closets are contemplated, in which, by some magical mechanism, sudden waters are to gush forth; but this report, like others _viâ_ Madrid and Paris telegraph, requires confirmation. Assuredly, the spirit of the Holy Inquisition, which still hovers over orthodox Spain, will long ward off these English heresies, which are rejected as too bad even by free-thinking France. [Sidenote: THE POSADA.]