‘The interior of the royal building is superb, but all the riches of the palace do not compare with the view of the gardens, which seem to have been laid out for the family of a Titanic king, to whom the parks and gardens of our kings must appear like terrace flower-beds or stable-yards. There are avenues as far as the eye can reach, flanked by immensely high trees, whose branches interlace as if bent by two contrary winds, which traverse in every direction a forest whose boundaries one cannot see; and through this forest the broad and rapid Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades and basins. A luxurious and flourishing vegetation abounds between a labyrinth of small avenues, cross roads, and openings; and on every side gleam statues, fountains, columns, and sprays of water, which fall in splashes, bows, and drops, in the midst of every kind of flower of Europe and America. To the majestic roar of the cascade of the Tagus is joined the song of innumerable nightingales, who utter their plaintive vibratory notes in the mysterious shade of the solitary paths. Beyond the palace, and all around the shrubberies, extend vineyards, olive-groves, plantations of fruit trees, and smiling meadows. It is a genuine oasis, surrounded by a desert, which Philip II. chose in a day of good humour, almost as if to temper with the gay picture the gloomy melancholy of the Escorial, and in which one still breathes the atmosphere, so to speak, of the private life of the kings of Spain.’ The Jardines de la Reina are of minor importance, but the Jardines de la Isla, comprising the four divisions which are known as Parterre, La Estatuas, Isla, and Emparrado, are filled with natural and created beauties. In the Isabel II. Garden is a bronze statue of the queen, erected to commemorate the political events of 1834. It is surrounded by a handsome iron railing, and completed by eight stone seats and as many marble vases mounted on pedestals. The Jardines de Principe, a much more modern preserve, are divided into four departments, and bisected by avenues that lead to the various small squares and to the Princesa, Apollo, Blanco, and Embajadores Avenues, the last of which terminates in the little Pabellones Garden of the time of Ferdinand VI. In addition to these princely gardens there are the English Garden, remarkable for its carved rock supporting a well-modelled swan; the Chinese Garden with its banana plantations; and the Garden of the Princess, acquired in 1535, and adorned in 1616 with a mechanical clock, decorated with twelve bronze figures that play on bronze trumpets. On the banks of the swiftly flowing river are the paddocks of the Crown, where camels and llamas roam, and a stud farm, where are bred English and Spanish blood horses and the beautiful cream-coloured animals of the Aranjuez stock.