realised. Of commerce hardly a hint. Here and there an offer to supply daily wants of the simplest kind, and, in the Calle del Comercio, a few shop-fronts with belated appointments. The most interesting is that of Alvarez, the best maker of damascene. Murray's guide-book recommends travellers to purchase this famous Toledo work at the Fabrica de Armas, the Government enterprise. This is wrong advice. The Fabrica produces inferior work, and charges twenty-five per cent. more than the private factories. Some of the work in Alvarez's shop is exquisite, and, when you have entered his workshop behind, and watched the men slowly and carefully produce this minute art, [Illustration: A STREET CORNER, TOLEDO] the wonder is not that it should be so expensive, but that it should not cost more. The Fabrica outside the town is only interesting to the lovers of steel. It is quite a vulgar and modern institution, dating from the days of Charles III., the bourgeois monarch, whom a Spanish writer contemptuously described as "an excellent mayor." In the middle ages, the armourers worked in their own houses, and each master had a band of apprentices. They formed a corporation, and were exempt from taxes and duties in the purchase of materials for this art. The sword-makers of Toledo were a company of European importance, and even the mere sellers of daggers and blades were privileged citizens, whom the very sovereigns and archbishops respected. Toledan steel was renowned in France and England, as well as in Italy. On his way to captivity in Madrid, Francis of France cried, seeing beardless boys with swords at their sides, "Oh! most happy Spain, that brings forth and brings up men already armed." The steel used by the _espaderos_ of Toledo came from the iron mines of Mondragon in the Basque provinces. Palomario explains its peculiar excellence by the virtues of the sand and water of the Tagus. When the metal was red-hot, it was covered with sand, and, the blade then formed, it was placed in a hollow of sixty centimetres, and red-hot, was plunged into a wooden tank full of Tagus water. The most celebrated _espadero_ of Toledo was _Guiliano el Moro_, a native of Granada, in the fifteenth century. He became converted after the surrender of Boabdil, and King Ferdinand being his sponsor, was also called Guiliano _el rey_. Cervantes mentions his mark, which was a little dog. Other great _espaderos_ were--Joannes de la Horta, Tomás de Ayala, Sagahun, Dionisio Corrientes, Miguel Cantera, whose motto was _opus laudat artificem_, Tomás Ghya, Hortensio de Aguerre and Menchaca Sebastian Hernandez. The decline of Toledan steel is traced to the introduction of French costume; and though attempts have been made to revive it, the old art, in all its unrivalled beauty, has forever vanished.