Another mode of travelling is by riding post, accompanied by a mounted postilion, who is changed with the cattle at each relay. It is an expeditious but fatiguing plan; yet one which, like the Tartar courier of the East, has long prevailed in Spain. Thus our Charles I. rode to Madrid under the name of John Smith, by which he was not likely to be identified. The delight of Philip II., who boasted that he governed the world from the Escorial, was to receive frequent and early intelligence; and this desire to hear something new is still characteristic of the Spanish government. The cabinet-couriers have the preference of horses at every relay. The particular distances they have to perform are all timed, and so many leagues are required to be done in a fixed time; and, in order to encourage despatch, for every hour gained on the allowed time, an additional sum was paid to them: hence the common expression “_ganando horas_” gaining hours--equivalent to our old “post haste--haste for your life.” [Sidenote: DILIGENCES.] [Sidenote: EXPENSES ON THE ROAD.] The usual mode of travelling for the affluent is in the public conveyances, which are the fashion from being novelties and only introduced under Ferdinand VII.; previously to their being allowed at all, serious objections were started, similar to those raised by his late Holiness to the introduction of railways into the papal states; it was said that these tramontane facilities would bring in foreigners, and with them philosophy, heresy, and innovations, by which the wisdom of Spain’s ancestors might be upset. These scruples were ingeniously got over by bribing the monarch with a large share of the profits. Now that the royal monopoly is broken down, many new and competing companies have sprung up; this mode of travelling is the cheapest and safest, nor is it thought at all beneath the dignity of “the best set,” nay royalty itself goes by the coach. Thus the Infante Don Francisco de Paula constantly hires the whole of the diligence to convey himself and his family from Madrid to the sea-coast; and one reason gravely given for Don Enrique’s not coming to marry the Queen, was that his Royal Highness could not get a place, as the dilly was booked full. The public carriages of Spain are quite as good as those of France, and the company who travel in them generally more respectable and better bred. This is partly accounted for by the expense: the fares are not very high, yet still form a serious item to the bulk of Spaniards; consequently those who travel in the public carriages in Spain are the class who would in other countries travel per post. It must, however, be admitted that all travelling in the public conveyances of the Continent necessarily implies great discomfort to those accustomed to their own carriages; and with every possible precaution the long journeys in Spain, of three to five hundred miles at a stretch, are such as few English ladies can