There is only one road from Madrid to Seville; but there are various modes of travelling it. Diligences, which leave Madrid twice a week, perform the journey in four days and a half; resting every evening from about seven, till a little after midnight. Galeras, on springs, which have no regular day of departure, but which are to be found every week, perform the journey in ten days. A private coach and seven mules may be hired, by which eleven or twelve days will be occupied on the road; or this journey may, like every other in Spain, be performed by mules, and by this mode of conveyance, fourteen days must be allowed. But none of these modes altogether pleased me; because the road between Madrid and Seville is so varied in the degree of interest which it possesses, that no single conveyance could unite the advantages of rapidity and slowness, essential to the enjoyment of the traveller who wishes to linger in those parts where peculiar attractions are to be found, and to pass rapidly over those uninteresting tracts that stretch between one point of interest and another. I resolved, therefore, to travel from Madrid to Ocaña, by Aranjuez, in a _caleche_; to take the diligence through La Mancha, to the foot of the Sierra Morena; to cross the Sierra to Anduxar on muleback; and there to be guided by circumstances and information, as to the mode of journeying to Seville. I left Madrid at half-past six in the morning; and for the last time, passed out at the gate of Toledo, and across the magnificent bridge which spans the insignificant brook dignified by the name of the river _Manzanares_. If the Tagus, which flows but seven leagues distant, filled the wide channel which is now scarcely moistened by the scanty waters that ooze through it,--what beauty, what wealth, would it carry to the metropolis of Spain! What a belt of verdure would girt the capital--what delicious shades,--what charming freshness! How contrasted in imagination with the treeless desert that now lords it on every side. But it is possible to suppose even greater changes than this; it is said to have been a favourite topic with Joseph Buonaparte, to speak not merely of diverting the waters of the Tagus to Madrid, but of connecting the capitals of Spain and Portugal by a navigable communication. There is only one step more needed, to present us with a vision of regenerated Spanish power, wealth, and glory--the annexation of Portugal to Spain,--the Peninsula one empire, and wisely governed.