Barcelona, once the rival of Venice, and now the chief sea-port of Spain, seems to be a bright, clean, and prosperous city. Its aspect, so far at least as regards its principal thoroughfares, is that of a feeble imitation of Paris. Its streets in general are as bad specimens of paving as are to be found in the Peninsula. The only truly national thing about the place is the odours, which we must regard as essential properties of a Spanish town. The long-suffering traveller's nose must resign itself with the best grace possible to the incessant inhalation of that variety of oleaginous and ammoniac smells which to Spaniards, we suppose, must be among the necessities of existence. There are few Moorish remains, as the Moors held Barcelona only for the comparatively short space of eighty-eight years, being expelled in 801 by Charlemagne, who added the city to his duchy of Aquitaine. The wise and the curious have determined amongst themselves that Barcelona was founded by Hamilcar the Carthaginian, who was also called Barca (_Anglice_, thunderbolt). However, it is quite certain that Augustus Cæsar raised it to considerable importance, making it a _colonia_ under the appellation of Julia Augusta, Pia, Faventia, and the rest. During the Middle Ages, Barcelona was the centre of learning and the resort of troubadours. Columbus was there received by the Catholic king to whom he had given a world. In 1543, steam was first applied to ships of 200 tons at Barcelona by Blasco de Garay; but from certain political complications and rivalries the experiment, though successful, was discouraged. Of course we had the constant pleasure of meeting, "whene'er we took our walks abroad," our old friends the sunburnt cigarette-smoking beggars, who with Maffeo Orsini cried, "_Il cigaretto per esser felice!_" Black with sun-burn, dirt, and age, having apparently nothing on earth to do, and plenty of time to do it, with lots of people to help them, they lounged about the portals of those wonderful churches one meets with so often in Italy and Spain--church, barn, and fortress lumped together, as if the building had not yet made up its mind what order of architecture it wanted to belong to--to what purpose, temporal or sacred, it was to be devoted. "_Donde el mar?_" cried we, on descending from the knifeboard.