It is not till one reaches Roda and Creixell that any villages have a really Spanish, or rather Castilian, look. Creixell, especially, with its massive church and great square building of stone standing haughtily on a hill of wall-terraces sprinkled with carob-trees, and with its houses the colour of the soil, has all the air of a little Toledo. Early on an autumn morning it may be seen reflected, with every house and window, in a blue lagoon hundreds of yards from the village and separated by sandbanks from the sea. The olives and vineyards now extend to the shore, and above San Vicente great white country-houses stand among orchards and olives. After Creixell there are but two villages, Torredenbarra and Altafulla, before Tarragona, the second coast-town of Catalonia. Here, indeed, the sun beats with a fiery strength; here, indeed, the Mediterranean is “crystalline,” and “the lightning of the noon-tide ocean flashes.” Here is excellent firm sand for bathing and, swimming far out, the sun is still seen shining through the transparent water on the waved sand below. At the end of September the season is over, yet the days are still almost too hot, and the deep blue of the bay and the long purple line of hills to the north-west are indescribably beautiful. Tarragona, the favoured city of the Romans, is the possessor of many noble Roman ruins, and wonderful Cyclopean walls, and its outline, seen against the sky from the road leading to Tortosa, is one of the most magnificent in Spain. The town and its neighbourhood, as well as the whole coast of Catalonia is, perhaps, not as well known as it deserves. In autumn, if the days and even the nights are hot, there is always a refreshing coolness in the early mornings; the people are, as a rule, pleasant and courteous; in some villages many speak Catalan only, and at times, catching a word here and there, one may think oneself to be in Italy. X AN EASTERN VILLAGE