The income, too, is, it is true, limited; but then one is usually in a cheap place. In fact, I always envied these favoured individuals. No calling, however, is without its _déboires_. It seems as if Providence had decreed that an income cannot be fairly, if agreeably, earned. Thus, the set-off against the bliss of the consul, is the necessity he is under of holding out his hand for his fee. I make these remarks, to introduce to your notice an ingenious method, put in practice--probably invented--by our consul at Bayonne, for getting over the irksomeness of this duty. I found him in his _bureau_, pen in hand, and a large sheet of official-shaped paper before him, half written over. On my passport being presented for his _visa_, his countenance assumed a painful expression, in which regret was blended with a sort of tendency to compassion, and which at first occasioned me a sensation of alarm, conjuring up in my imagination all the consequences of an irregular passport--tedious routes to be retraced, time lost, expense incurred, and suspicion, and even incarceration--infection--death! Meanwhile he pointed to the letter he was writing, and, drawing forward with the other hand a chair, said that he was at that moment memorializing the Foreign Office on the subject of these visas; that his pain was extreme at seeing travellers compelled to send or come to his office, and to lose thus much valuable time; he was likewise concerned at their having to pay three francs each for so useless a ceremony as his visa; but he wished it to be remarked, that it was at present a ceremony quite indispensable; since, only four days back, a gentleman had been compelled to return from the Spanish frontier (a distance of seven leagues) in the middle of the night, in consequence of his having neglected this, as yet, necessary observance.[1]