The climate of Tarragona is now, as it ever was, mild and genial, and the summer heat is tempered by the cool breeze of the sea. So salubrious was its air held to be, that the Roman Prætors always established here their winter quarters, and Tarragona became the capital of Roman Spain. It was originally colonised by the Carthaginians, and the flower of its youth were enlisted to swell the armies of the great enemy of Rome. Publius and Cneius Scipio, however, occupied the city, and compelled it to submit to the Roman sway. Tarragona, in the war between Cæsar and Pompey, declared for the latter, but upon his defeat at Pharsalia, humbly submitted to the conqueror, and Julius resided within its walls, calling the city "Julia Victrix." Augustus Cæsar passed one winter here, B.C. 26, and the ruins of the palace where he dwelt may still be seen supporting some ignoble bricks of modern Spain. Tarragona stands amidst the fallen splendour of ancient Rome, while the stern mountains rising darkly around, though comparatively changeless themselves, look down upon the scene below, which, amid the wreck of an empire, speaks so eloquently of the uncertainty of human greatness. We had just congratulated ourselves in having got rid of the Moorish-looking gentleman who had been constantly afraid of catching cold from an open window behind his wall of packages in the diligence, when we were favoured with the society of another native gentleman who had already caught cold, and, like all his countrymen, was terribly afraid of fresh air. As the sun increased in power our friend seemed to decrease in caloric, and proceeded at length to encase his legs in a sack, at the bottom of which was a hot bottle. When one of us approached the windows he requested that they might be kept well closed, in order "to preserve our atmosphere;" but unfortunately we could hit upon no expedient by which we might "preserve _our_ atmosphere" without destroying his at the same time, and so the eternal _quæstio vexata_ of fresh air had to be argued once more. The new acquisition was at first very taciturn. As the day, however, became perfectly broiling, and the hot bottle began to do its work, he seemed to show signs of thawing a little, and some of the ideas that had been ice-locked within his mind during the night began to dribble out before the warmth of day. He, however, knew as little of English as we of Spanish. For example, in explaining that we thought night-travelling a great bore, we were astonished to hear him say that--"Zee voyage in zee noctes was 'a great male pig.'" He had, of course, on some occasion looked out in the dictionary for "bore," and turning to "boar" by mistake, had found the explanation, "Boar--male pig," a piece of information which he had fondly cherished in his mind ever since, to display at the first opportunity, as a proof of his linguistical acquirements.