Toledo is one of the most ancient cities not merely in Spain, but in the whole world, if the chroniclers are to be believed. The most moderate of them fix the period of its foundation prior to the Deluge; why not in the time of the Pre-Adamite kings, a few years before the creation of the world? Some attribute the honour of laying the first stone to Tubal; some to the Greeks; some, again, to the Roman consuls Telmon and Brutus; while others, supporting their opinion on the etymology of the word Toledo, which is derived from _Toledoth_, meaning, in Hebrew, generations, assert that the Jews who came to Spain with Nebuchadnezzar, were the original founders, because the twelve tribes all helped to build and people it. However this may be, Toledo is certainly a fine old city, situated some dozen leagues from Madrid,--Spanish leagues, by the way, which are longer than a _feuilleton_ of a dozen columns, or a day without money--the longest things I know. You can go there either in a _calessin_ or a small diligence which leaves twice a week. The latter conveyance is preferred as being the safer of the two; for on the other side of the Pyrenees, as was formerly the case in France, a person makes his will before undertaking the shortest journey. The terrible reports about brigands must, however, be exaggerated; for, in the course of a very long pilgrimage through those provinces which are considered the most dangerous, we never saw anything which could justify this universal panic. Nevertheless, the continual state of dread adds a great deal to the pleasure of the traveller, for it keeps you continually on the alert, and hinders the time from hanging heavily on your hands; you do some heroic actions, you display a superhuman amount of valour, and the troubled and scared looks of those who are spared raises you in your own estimation. A journey in the diligence, which we are accustomed to look on as the most ordinary thing in the world, becomes an adventure, an expedition; you set out, it is true, but it is not so certain that you will reach your destination, or return from whence you started. After all, this is something, in such an advanced state of civilization as that of modern times, in the prosaic and common-place year, 1840.