The custom of the country requires a formal call between Christmas and Twelfth-day, on all one’s acquaintance; and tables are placed in the house squares, or _Patios_, to receive the cards of the visiters. Presents of sweetmeats are common between friends; and patients send to their medical attendants the established acknowledgment of a turkey; so that Doctors in great practice open a kind of public market for the disposal of their poultry. These turkeys are driven in flocks by gipseys, who patiently walk in the rear of the ungovernable phalanxes, from several parts of Old Castile, and chiefly from Salamanca. The march which they perform is of no less than four hundred miles, and lasts about one half of the year. The turkeys, which are bought from the farmers mere chickens, acquire their full growth, like your fashionables, in travelling, and seeing the world. LETTER X. _Madrid, 1807._ My removal to this capital has been sudden and unexpected. My friend Leandro, from whom I am become inseparable, was advised by his physicians to seek relief from a growing melancholy--the effect of a mortal aversion to his professional duties, and to the intolerant religious system with which they are connected--in the freedom and dissipation of the court; and I found it impossible to tear myself from him. The journey from Seville to Madrid, a distance of about two hundred and sixty English miles, is usually performed in heavy carriages drawn by six mules, in the space of from ten to eleven days. A party of four persons is formed by the coachman, (Mayoral) who fixes the day and hour for setting out, arranges the length of the stages, prescribes the time for getting up in the morning, and even takes care that every passenger attends mass on a Sunday, or any other church festival during the journey. As it was, however, of importance not to delay my friend’s removal from Seville, we chose the more expensive conveyance by posting, and having obtained a passport, set off in an open and half foundered chaise--the usual vehicles till within thirty miles of Madrid.