It is well for me that I am not so rich as the young man I met at Cairo who has money enough to indulge every caprice. I thank Heaven for it, for if he be half as hot-blooded and impulsive as I am, surely his life will be short; but necessity has ordained that my strength and youth should be directed by others, and in a different sphere; and the more tasks I receive, the happier is my life. I want work, close, absorbing, and congenial work, only so that there will be no time for regrets, and vain desires, and morbid thoughts. In the interval, books come handy. I have picked up Helvetius and Zimmerman, in Alexandria, and, though there is much wisdom in them, they are ill-suited to young men with a craze for action. * * * * * And now he is back at headquarters in London, and gets his orders for Spain; and there he spends six months, March to September, 1869, describing various scenes of the revolution, and the general aspect of the country, in a graphic record. These letters are among the best of his descriptive writings. The Spanish scenery and people; the stirring events; the barricades and street-fighting; the leaders and the typical characters; the large issues at stake--all make a great and varied theme. On arriving in Spain, Stanley commenced studying Spanish, with such success, that, by June, he was able to make a speech in Spanish, and became occasional correspondent to a Spanish newspaper. The insurrection of September, 1868, which drove Isabella from the Throne, led to a provisional Government under a Regency, General Prim acting as Minister of War. On June 15, 1869, Stanley was present in the Plaza de Los Cortes when the Constitution was read to twenty thousand people, who roared their ‘vivas.’ Stanley was in the prime of his powers, and these powers were not, as afterwards in Africa, taxed by heavy responsibilities, and ceaseless executive work, but given solely to a faithful and vivid chronicle of what he saw. ‘I went to Spain,’ he wrote, ‘the young man going to take possession of the boy’s heritage, those dear dreams of wild romance, stolen from school-hours.’ When a Carlist rising threatened, hundreds of miles away, Stanley immediately hastened off to the scene. On one occasion, he hurried from Madrid in search of the rebellious Carlists, who were said to have risen at Santa Cruz de Campescu. ‘As soon as I reached the old town of Vittoria, I took my seat in the diligence for Santa Cruz de Campescu; our road lay westward towards the Atlantic through the valley of Zadora. If you have read Napier’s “Battles of the Peninsula,” you can well imagine how interesting each spot, each foot of ground, was to me. This valley was a battle-field, where the armed legions of Portugal, Spain, and England, matched themselves against Joseph Buonaparte’s French Army.’