The Governor of Tarifa had somewhat the air of an English country gentleman. He afforded me all the facilities I could desire for landing and embarking, and sent his aid-de-camp with me to inspect the fortifications. On presenting to the Alcalde a letter from his brother at Algeciras, he declined to open it, saying, “You are expected.” He conducted me from his office to his house to see his family. Scarcely were we seated when he remarked that the arrival of a stranger was an extraordinary event at Tarifa, and still more so, of one interested in their country, and who busied himself in studying the laws and manners of different people. He then asked me whether I had thought of anything for their benefit? I said I had, and that it was, “Bury your new laws and return to your old customs.” Having explained that my meaning was to get rid of a general Cortes, not to substitute a despotism, but to revive the local constitutions--that is, the _law_, leaving to each the burthen of its own management and the conduct of its own business; he said, that indeed would be putting an end to _theories_ of “liberty” or “despotism,” and that the plan would be most popular if any leading man brought it forward. He then asked me how I came to devise such a scheme? I told him it was as old as the hills--that it was, in fact, the law of the Peninsula, encroached upon, but not destroyed by Austrian or Bourbon--that these ancient customs were looked to with veneration by the profoundest men of those countries, which the Spaniards fancied they were imitating while they were destroying them. Notwithstanding the war which the Spanish Government has for centuries waged against every vestige of the race who made Spain the strongest, most learned, chivalrous, and polished country in Europe, the women of Tarifa appear in the streets muffled up as Mussulman women, and expose but one eye. I was invited in the evening to what I was told was a club. The place was an apothecary’s shop. I was introduced into a sort of vault, and I found myself in a gambling establishment. Their cards were like those used by the Greeks; the club being represented, not by the French trefoil, but by a club; the spade by a sword; the heart by a cup; and the diamond by a gold coin. The names being _Bastones_, _Espadas_, _Copas_, _Oros_. The conversation having turned upon cards, I mentioned its supposed astronomical origin: the four seasons represented by the four suits; the fifty-two weeks by the number of the cards; and the thirteen lunar months by the thirteen tricks, proving whist to be the original game. I was here stopped. They had only twelve tricks and forty-eight cards; and “Of course,” said a Spanish Major (a Mr. Kennedy), “our game is more scientific, because adapted to the Julian Calendar!”