Such men as Lords Howe, Duncan, St. Vincent, Nelson, Saumarez, Keats, Hallowell, &c., are not mushrooms of a day’s growth, but the experience of a long and hazardous service in all parts of the world had braced their nerves and trained their minds to the task, which they performed with such _credit_ to themselves and _honour and glory to their country_. On the 8th September we sailed from this anchorage for Tarragona, which place the French had evacuated, having first destroyed most of the guns and blown up part of the fortifications. Everything looked miserable and wretched in the extreme. Many of the houses were knocked to pieces, and the poor inhabitants, returning back to view the birthplaces of themselves and ancestors, found them reduced to a heap of ruins. I rode with my agreeable passengers to Reus, the second largest town in the province of Catalonia, where we dined after the Spanish fashion upon olla podrida, and other messes, stuffed full of garlic and bad oil. After walking about the town, and looking at a handsome church, the windows of which were of stained glass, we returned on board and sailed for Valencia. The peasantry of this province and of Catalonia are as fine a race of men as I ever saw in any country--tall, strong, and well made. On the 15th September we anchored off the Grao de Valencia, and the next morning communicated with our consul according to orders, and landed Viscount and Viscountess Mahon and family, who took up their abode with Mr. Tupper, our representative, who was very civil and polite, and showed us the lions of the city. The cathedral was very fine, from the top of which we had a most magnificent view of a very fertile valley, producing rice, maize, flax, and other grain, besides almond and vine trees, the latter covered with beautiful purple and white grapes. A small river runs past Valencia, over which are two tolerably fine stone bridges. We had a view also of the lake of Albufera, from which the French marshal, Suchet, derives his dukedom. Valencia is one of the best towns I have seen in Spain, and the road from the grao, or beach, is extremely pretty, having trees planted on each side, to afford shelter from the sun. Neat little thatched cottages, scattered here and there, put me for a short time in mind of England. After dinner at the consul’s, which was served up in the Spanish style, we went to the opera, and sat in a box with some pretty Spanish ladies, friends of Mr. Tupper. The opera was in honour of the Marquis of Wellington. It represented the Spaniards driving the Moors out of Spain; afterwards we had a fandango, and the whole concluded with a farce, the subject taken from Gil Blas, where he entertains at supper the sycophant.