right road and the precipices, gave the scene a sort of monumental appearance. The torrents foam and roar in every direction; the road passes over them by means of the bridges of uncemented stone so frequent in Spain, and which you meet at every step you take. The mountains continued to tower higher and higher, and when we had ascended one, another, which we had not before seen, rose up before us. The mules were no longer equal to their task, and we were under the necessity of procuring a team of oxen, which gave us an opportunity of alighting, and performing the rest of the ascent on foot. I was actually intoxicated with the pure bracing air; I felt so light, so joyous, so full of enthusiasm, that I cried out and capered about like a young goat. I experienced a desire to throw myself down all the charming precipices, that looked so azure, so vapoury, and so velvet-like. I wished to be carried away by the cascades, to dip my feet in all the springs, to pluck a leaf from every fir, to roll myself in the glittering snow, to be mixed up with all the objects around, and melt like an atom in the immensity before me. The lofty mountain crests glistened and sparkled in the sun, like the skirt of a dancing-girl's robe under its shower of silver spangles; others, again, had their peaks surrounded by clouds, and merged imperceptibly into the sky, for nothing resembles a mountain so much as a cloud. The whole view was composed of one succession of precipices and undulations. It is beyond the power of art, whether of the pen or the pencil, to convey an adequate idea of their different colours and forms. Mountains realize all that the imagination can picture of them, and this is no small praise. The only difference between the reality and the idea we form of it, arises from the fact of our fancying mountains look larger than they do. We are only aware of their enormous size by comparison. On gazing attentively, you perceive that what, at a distance, you took for a blade of grass, is a fir-tree sixty feet high.