more comfortable than I presume the guests must be to-day, he cannot have suffered more in the prison of Argamasilla, or in slavery to the Turk. Stepping upon the Plaza, there would not now be much that is novel to shock his eye beyond the dress. The Plaza has preserved its old triangular form, two sides straight, and the third curved, with the single broad path that leads to the Alcázar. The shops still run inside the rough arcade that makes the circuit of the place, and loafers and gossips loll upon the stone benches, while water-laden mules amble by, and girls, effective and unimaginably graceful, with well-dressed heads and brilliant eyes, in groups saunter into view, carrying on their hips earthen amphoras, which they have filled at the public fountain. These are features that have not changed since the grave sweet humourist trod this broken pavement. Visit it in the dropping twilight, when the early stars are out, and you will find it alive with promenaders, uniforms in excess among the males. Priests, soldiers and beggars abound, and dwelling on the dulness of Toledo, it can be no [Illustration: MOORISH ARCH LEADING TO ZOCODOVER] [Illustration: HOUSE CERVANTES STAYED IN, TOLEDO] wonder to us that the spruce young officers of Madrid detest being quartered here. What have they to do in a town where there is not even a decent café, and social existence is not partially understood? And the pleasures of walking round a romantic city cannot be offered them as adequate distraction. For us, of course, it suffices as long as taste keeps us at Toledo, and each walk has its fresh surprise, if not a fresh enchantment. Impossible to find a more intricate, maze-like arrangement of streets, and some of the passages behind the Alcázar, and round by the Cathedral look so dreadful and perilous that the marvel is there are to be found persons with sufficient courage to dwell in such places. One is disposed to agree with Robida the French artist, who attributes the excellence of Toledan steel in bygone ages to the desperate danger of the streets, since nobody then but a citizen armed to the teeth would be insane enough to leave his house.