As I leant over one of the embrasures, taking a bird's-eye view of this town where I knew no one and where my own name was completely unknown, I had fallen into a deep train of thought. In the presence of all these forms and all these objects that I beheld at that moment, and which, in all probability, I was destined never to behold again, I began to entertain doubts of my own identity; I felt so absent, as it were, from myself, transported so far from my own sphere, that everything appeared an hallucination of my mind, a strange dream, from which I should be suddenly awakened by the sharp squeaking music of some vaudeville, as I was looking out of a box at the theatre. By one of those leaps which our imagination often takes when we are buried in reverie, I tried to picture to myself what my friends might be doing at that moment; I asked myself whether they noticed my absence, and whether at the time I was leaning over the battlements of the Alcazar of Toledo, my name was hovering on the lips of some well-loved and faithful friend at Paris. Apparently the answer that my thoughts gave me was not an affirmative one, for in spite of the scene I felt an indescribable feeling of sadness come over me, though the dream of my whole life was being accomplished; I knew that one of my fondest ideas was being fulfilled; in my youthful, happy years of romanticism, I had spoken enough of my good Toledo blade to feel some curiosity to see the place where these same blades were manufactured. Nothing, however, could rouse me from my philosophical meditations, until my companion came and proposed that we should bathe in the Tagus. Bathing is rather a rare peculiarity in a country where, during the summer, the natives water the beds of the rivers with water from the wells. Trusting to the assurances of the guide that the Tagus was a real river, possessing a sufficient amount of humidity to answer our purpose, we descended as quickly as we could from the Alcazar, in order to profit by what little daylight still remained, and directed our steps towards the stream. After crossing the _Plaza de la Constitucion_, which is surrounded by houses whose windows, furnished with large spartum blinds rolled up, or half raised by the projecting balconies, have a sort of Venetian mediæval look that is highly picturesque, we passed under a handsome Arabic gateway with its semicircular brick arch, and following a very steep and abrupt zigzag path, winding along the rocks and walls which serve Toledo as a girdle, we reached the bridge of Alcantara, near which we found a place suited for bathing. During our walk, night, which succeeds the day so rapidly in southern climates, had set in completely; but this did not hinder us from wading blindfold into this estimable stream, rendered famous by the languishing ballad of Queen Hortense, and by the golden sands which are contained in its crystal waves, according to the poets, the guides, and the travellers' handbooks.