Ah! those careless days, snatched from the serious toil of our existence, they come not again. Those sunny holidays which we enjoyed in the society of friendship, how happy, though few, they were, and how delightful it is to recall them to memory! They come but rarely, and at distant intervals, but for that reason they are only the more delightful. They pass quickly, but their memory is as green as ever, and in calling to mind our various wanderings, we feel almost as delighted as we actually did when our footsteps ranged at freedom in a strange land and under a foreign sky. Well may the desponding poet sing:-- "Count o'er the joys thy life hath seen, Count o'er the days from anguish free, And know whatever thou hast been, 'Tis something better--not to be." Back again then we turned, through the acacias, the palms, the glare and the dust, and over the old bridge with its statues, spanning the waterless river. We passed the grim old fortress-gates of other days, and walls topped with mouldering battlements, standing up before the nineteenth century to verify the former strength of the Moorish conqueror. We again went through the perfumed gardens and wide white _plazas_, all glowing in the sun; the dim labyrinthine streets once more received us; and, stumbling out from the black plague-cart, we were soon within the beggar-haunted _fonda_. Here we discussed a meal, consisting of enormous prawns, like reptiles swimming in oil, and of red chocolate, sweetened with mare's milk and cinnamon. But as the proverb says, "the jaw of man brought all evil into the world," we suppose, therefore, it is meet that it should suffer occasional retribution; and sure enough it _will_ suffer it among some of those _cosas de España_ which have no resemblance to those of any other country. To turn out into the streets of a foreign town--the more foreign the better--is a great delight; to go forth alone and see where fate will lead us, and to wander and meditate, undisturbed by cackling guide, who, with the spirit of plagiarism which is characteristic of his race, waits until we have informed him of some historic fact, and then tells it back again in half-an-hour as his own information. Follow us then, gentle reader, and bear with the eccentric "order of our going," and in your amiability, favour us by remembering that that which may seem disorder to some is with others a law of their nature which they must obey. So we pray "Whoe'er thou art that read'st this errant book, Slight it not for its method, so as to Reject it; but into it we pray thee look; It may meet with thine heart before thou go."[24]