Walking either in the streets, or in the neighbourhood of Bilbao, the convents and monasteries are very conspicuous: they are almost all immense piles of building, of little architectural beauty, and are at once distinguished by the strong gratings that cover their windows. In the town there are four monasteries--the Franciscans, the Capuchins, the Augustins, and the Carmelites: the two former of these subsist on charity, which is liberally bestowed, and they in their turn give charity to others. Every day, a great number of poor are fed after the Franciscan friars have dined, and as they are a hundred and ten in number, the refuse of their dinner must be considerable. I visited the Franciscan convent accompanied by an English lady, and although I found the utmost politeness from the Superior, he was deaf to all my entreaties to permit the lady to enter the sacristy, to see a picture said to be by Raphael. This convent was partly destroyed by the French, and it was under its gateway that several of those military executions took place, which so disgraced the conduct of the French during their occupation of the province of Biscay. In the Carmelite convent, there are only five friars, who want for nothing that money can purchase; they are extremely rich, and possess a charming property not far from Bilbao, called “_el Desierto_;” but which might with greater propriety be called “_el Paradaiso_.” Besides these monasteries within the town, there are two at a short distance from it--the Burcena convent of Mercenarios, and the Friars of San Mames, both of the Franciscan order. The female convents are also numerous; these are, La Conception, a Franciscan order, in which there are 14 nuns; Santa Clara, also Franciscan, in which there are 10 nuns; El Convento de la Encarnacion, where there are 27 nuns; el Convento de la Cruz, containing 12 nuns; Santa Monica, an Augustinian order, with 12 nuns; La Esperanza, containing 12, and La Merced, containing 10. There are altogether about 350 friars and nuns in Bilbao, and about 120 priests. In the province of Biscay, females profess at a very early age; their noviciate generally commences about fifteen, and at the expiration of a year they take the veil. A nun must carry into the convent about 30,000 reals (300_l._); and to La Merced and Santa Monica, considerably more. I ascertained, from a source of the most authentic kind, that three-fourths of the nuns who take the veil at this early age, die of a decline within four years. The climate, which in Biscay is so prolific in consumption, added to the low and damp situation of some of the convents, may perhaps be admitted to have some influence upon this premature decay; but I should incline to attribute a greater influence to causes more immediately referable to the unhappy and unnatural condition of those who are shut out from the common privileges, hopes, and enjoyments of their kind.