Those who travel in public conveyances or with muleteers are seldom likely to be left alone. It is the horseman who strikes into out-of-the-way, unfrequented districts, who will feel the want of that important item--a travelling companion, on which, as in choosing a wife, it is easy enough to give advice. The patient must, however, administer to himself, and the selection will depend, of course, much on the taste and idiosyncracy of each individual; those unfortunate persons who are accustomed to have everything their own way, or those, happy ones, who are never less alone than when alone, and who possess the alchymy of finding resources and amusements in themselves, may perhaps find that plan to be the best; at all events, no company is better than bad company: “_mas vale ir solo, que mal acompañado_.” A solitary wanderer is certainly the most unfettered as regards his notions and motions, “_no tengo padre ni madre, ni perro que me ladre_.” He who has “neither father, mother, nor dog to bark at him,” can read the book of Spain, as it were, in his own room, dwelling on what he likes, and skipping what he does not, as with a red Murray. [Sidenote: SPANISH MANNERS.] Every coin has, however, its reverse, and every rose its thorn. Notwithstanding these and other obvious advantages, and the tendency that occupation and even hardships have to drive away imaginary evils, this freedom will be purchased by occasional moments of depression; a dreary, forsaken feeling will steal over the most cheerful mind. It is not good for man to be alone; and this social necessity never comes home stronger to the warm heart than during a long-continued solitary ride through the rarely visited districts of the Peninsula. The sentiment is in perfect harmony with the abstract feeling which is inspired by the present condition of unhappy Spain, fallen from her high estate, and blotted almost from the map of Europe. Silent, sad, and lonely is her face, on which the stranger will too often gaze; her hedgeless, treeless tracts of corn-field, bounded only by the low horizon; her uninhabited, uncultivated plains, abandoned to the wild flower and the bee, and which are rendered still more melancholy by ruined castle, or village, which stand out bleaching skeletons of a former vitality. The dreariness of this abomination of desolation is increased by the singular absence of singing birds, and the presence of the vulture, the eagle, and lonely birds of prey. The wanderer, far from home and friends, feels doubly a stranger in this strange land, where no smile greets his coming, no tear is shed at his going,--where his memory passes away, like that of a guest who tarrieth but a day,--where nothing of human life is seen, where its existence only is inferred by the rude wooden cross or stone-piled cairn, which marks the unconsecrated grave of some traveller who has been waylaid there alone, murdered, and sent to his account with all his imperfections on his head.