The Spaniards, in fact, are an indolent people, and have no desire to correct their slothful habits by the bracing effects of cold water; and although the great ladies, in the utter absence of all occupation, have no other task than that of fostering their beauty and pampering their vanity, they do not consider water necessary to these ends: moreover, water is scarce, and therefore dear. The medical men beyond the Pyrenees, who might be expected to correct so grave an error, are creatures of habit, conservative from force of education, and comparatively cut off from the remainder of the scientific world. The Spaniard too, besides being an hydrophobist, has always a shivering dread of fresh air. Whenever he is asked to go anywhere, it is always _muy frio_ with him. And yet in spite of these customs he is not, we suppose, more unhealthy than other men. Lounging one day on the Prado, a great clattering of hoofs was heard, and the Queen of Spain, in an open carriage, drawn by six magnificent mules, all over silver and gold, dashed past, escorted by a detachment of cavalry. By her side sat an ordinary-looking young man, who, we were informed, was the King-Consort. Every Saturday afternoon, Her Majesty visits the Church Atocha[11] to pay her respects to a coarse, black wooden doll, which is wrapped, in a very grotesque manner, in garments encrusted with gold and stiff with precious stones of sufficient value to build half a dozen hospitals and endow the poor of Madrid for life. This image, which is supposed to have been carved by St. Luke, is said to have been brought from Antioch, and popular superstition ascribes to it the power of performing miracles. Within this church we were shown the court dress in which the Queen was arrayed some years ago when an attempt was made upon her life. It is, of course, very splendid, and the blood-stained robes were presented to the Virgin as an offering of the Queen's gratitude for her deliverance from the arm of the assassin. As the gift is repeated every year on the anniversary day, the Virgin[12] has now about as splendid a wardrobe as any modern Queen of Sheba. While the verger, or whatever he called himself, was explaining this remarkable exemplification of his Monarch's piety, we observed that he was smoking a cigarette; upon which we, naturally thinking it was the correct thing, proceeded to do likewise. That functionary, however, put an end to our delusion at once, by observing,-- "Señor, the profane may not smoke here. I am within the bosom of the church, and my actions are consecrated." Regarding this as one of those singular _cosas de España_ to which the stranger must submit, we presented the holy, but rather dirty, gentleman with the cigarette from which our too confiding lips were so cruelly divorced.