Saturday), standing with his legs apart, broadly planted in the dignity of his office. The straddling supporters of this weight of importance were encased in what seemed in front to be a pair of brown sheepskin breeches, but from behind revealed themselves to be but a slit apron fastened with thongs round each leg. Both his hands were on his hips, with each thumb hooked in the folds of his faja, and in the fingers of his right was a crooked whittle, with which ever and anon, as the basketfuls arrived, he would nick the score upon notch-sticks which hung in a curve of string between two branches of an olive hard by.

These sticks were regular tallies. Each basket had a couple of loops in which the gatherer's stick rested, and when the basket was discharged, the bearer presented it to the capataz. He, fitting it on to its brother on the line, nicked them both with his eagle-beaked blade. By the way, this little epithet explains how falco (hawk) probably came from falx (pruning-hook); observe also the likeness between hawk and hook, all of them cousins.

I made a sketch of old Madruga, the capataz, with his head on one side, and a fireless-paper cigar mumbled between his large nose and chin; for his broad mouth had fallen in for want of teeth. I could not do justice, however, to the sort of confidential swagger of his attitude and expression.

Early in February, 1852, Mr. Cayley was joined by a fellowcountryman and friend, who is presented to us on the steamer's quay on the Guadalquivir, and is portrayed as advancing up the bank under a pile of British great-coats, and with that sturdy and almost hostile demeanour with which a true Briton marches into a strange city.' They had previously agreed to make the tour of Spain in company, and they now purchased for the expedition a couple of ponies, which they called the Cid and the Moor, and equipped themselves with Andalusian dresses and the alforjas, which it was Mr. Cayley's mission to immortalize. They likewise provided themselves with pencils, and sketchbooks, and colours, that they might assume the character of travelling artists; and in their girdles they arranged a small arsenal of pistols, revolvers, and daggers. On the 24th February, they set forth from the gate of Seville, with no plan except to avoid (if that were possible, which the

sequel shows it was not) every place described by Ford and seen by Englishmen. Halting at noon on the edge of a dehesa, or moor, to smoke their cigars, they had dismounted from their steeds, which unfortunately broke loose, and gallopped back towards Seville. Mr. Cayley gave chase, while Hremained to keep guard over the baggage. As the sentinel sat among the alforjas and cloaks, he was espied by a passing highwayman, who trotted up, and after some parley, demanded his money. Shots were exchanged, and when Mr. Cayley returned with the horses, he found his friend with a round hole in the brim of his hat, and the luggage augmented by a corpse in gay costume. They hid the robber under a bush, and rode on to Utrera. Next day-their artistic vocation having been made known the night before Mr. Cayley was engaged in taking the likeness of the dead man's mistress, at the moment when the body, slung across his horse, was brought to the door by four of the road patrol. The whole adventure is so graphically narrated, that we were much relieved at finding in a subsequent page an intimation that we are not to believe a word of it.

By way of Ronda, which they abuse as a take-in, our artists reached Gibraltar, whence they crossed the Straits to Tangiers, and were present at a Jewish wedding. A French war steamer brought them back; and they then pursued their way to Malaga, Grenada, and Madrid. From the capital they made some short excursions by diligence; were disappointed in the vaunted glories of archiepiscopal Toledo; but delighted and astonished by the natural and architectural features of rock-built, gorge-girt Cuenca.

We wish some of our professional artists, leaving the pen and pencil beaten ground of Seville and Granada, would devote a midsummer week's work to one of the most picturesque of Spanish cities. Although it may be reached by an excellent road and a well-appointed diligence, either from Madrid or Valencia, many places less accessible are as familiar to English eyes as

letter to Field-Martial the Duke of Wellington.

Of Mr. Cayley's method of beguiling time by the way we cannot resist giving a specimen, believing that our readers will be amused by learning how he endeavoured to do good, not by stealth, but by highway robbery :

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MARKETGARDENER OF MALAGA, AND HOW MR. CAYLEY ROBBED AND LECTURED HIM.

Hereupon H- who happened to have a good deal of copper money, began to disburse liberally-so much so, that an old man riding behind us on an ass with empty panniers, seeing him throw the immense sum of a couple of 2-cuarto pieces to an old hag with one eye and a grizzly beard, thought it a pity to lose the opportunity of getting something himself, since little fortunes were in process of being scattered about the road with such reckless and unbounded profusion. He came up alongside, and entered into a piteous detail of his immediate losses and general poverty.

At first we did not make out exactly what he would be at, and listened to his grievances civilly; but when he wound up with plain begging, the originality and boldness of the idea of a mounted beggar struck us in so humorous a light that we could not help laughing in his face. His story was that he had come into Malaga that morning from a distance, and had sold some garden-stuff for two dollars, of which he had been in some way robbed or cheated, and now he had not an ochavo in the world. We rode along before him talking about his case, when, as the road had turned in from the coast and become lonely, an idea struck me of a sudden.

-;

Suppose we rob him,' I said to H'I'll be bound he has the money for his cabbages safe in his pocket; at any rate we will see.' He protested that it was eminently absurd, and that we might get into a tremendous scrape-but I would not listen to reason. I foresaw it would be an original adventure. So I turned my pony's head and we waited for him to come up. He quickened his pace and overtook us again, making a still more piteous face than before, in the evident impression that we had taken his misfortunes into consideration, and were about to do something handsome for him. What, therefore, must his surprise and horror have been, when, as he got fairly between us, I drew my six-barrelled revolver, and thus addressed him.

'Impudent old scoundrel-stand still --if thou stirr'st hand or foot, or openest thy mouth, I will slay thee like a dog! Thou, greedy miscreant, who art evidently a man of property and hast an ass to ride upon, art not satisfied without trying to rob the truly poor of the alms we give them. Now, it is the religion of the Ingleses, founded on the precept and practice of the celebrated Saint Robino Hoodo, to levy funds from stingy old curmudgeons like thyself and distribute to the poor. Therefore at once hand over the two dollars of which thou spakest, otherwise here I clicked the cock of the pistol.

During this little harangue, which was delivered gravely (though H

was

obliged to turn away his face at the mention of Robin Hood as a santo muy famoso), the old culprit had gone down on his knees, and was trembling violently, and muttering deprecations, for the love of the Virgin. But as I did not relax the stern expression of my countenance, he said in a shaky voice

'One moment, caballeros, and I will give you all I possess. But I am poor, very poor, and I have a sick wife at the disposition of your worships

Wherefore art thou fumbling at thy foot? Thou carriest not thy sick wife in thy shoe?'

I can't untie the string, my hand trembles so; will your worships permit me to take out my knife?'

I nodded, seeing he was really frightened, and not at all likely to do any mischief with it. He cut the thong, which had been knotted over and over again, and taking the shoe off his stockingless and filthy foot, turned out a handful of small silver, chiefly two-real pieces, into my hand. He then groped in his breeches' pocket, and brought out a good deal of copper, which he also gave up with a very submissive air. I replaced my pistol in my faja, and made as if I would ride on. As soon as he saw his life was no longer in danger, his pecuniary loss began to work on his constitution, and he burst into tears.

'Come, now! None of that--or we shall feel it our duty to shoot thy donkey, that thou may'st have something to whimper for.'

It was a piteous sight, to see the grey-haired old imposter crying like a child, and I thought we had punished him enough, so I said,

'Now we know thou art poor, since we have taken thy money, we will give thee a trifle. There' (dropping his money into his hat, which he held out timidly) is something by way of charity; and take heed that thou begg'st not again when thou hast money in thy

1853.]

pocket, and so remain with God, my friend.'

With this we rode on, and were in some slight fear for the rest of the day, that he might find some of the Guardia Civil, and send them after us to take us up. But I dare say it never occurred to him, as we left him no poorer, that our offence was actionable.

The facetious title-page of Mr. Cayley's book, designed, no doubt, by himself, bears for its modest epigraph a remark from Don Quixote, that no book is so bad that it does not contain something that is good. The volumes thus inscribed contain a great deal that is excellent-good sense, good humour, gay fancy, neat style, a great power of painting a scene or a character in a few appropriate words. But the converse of the knight's remark is also true, that no book is so good but that it contains something that might be amended. We trust that Mr. Cayley, in his next book of travels, will keep what he narrates separate from what he invents. Instead of occupying different sides of his Alforjas, these two materials are so blended and interwoven, that it is difficult to distinguish them from each other. When incidents are first related as facts, and then, a few pages further on, confessed to be fictions, there arises in the reader's mind an unpleasant distrust of incidents in which relation is not neutralized by any subsequent confession. Some things told us by Mr. Cayley we must venture to disbelieve altogether, without any such permission from him, and without asking any questions-such as the story that he met a friend travelling with his bride-an English lady Jane-dressed in that portion of male attire which Mr. Cayley laid aside on entering Burgos, and which English ladies assume only in a metaphorical and domestic sense. Some of the conversations with H. are too long, and the subjects out of place-as, for instance, the disquisitions on Thackeray, Dickens, and Disraeli. We shall be glad to hear Mr. Cayley's criticisms on these distinguished persons at a proper time, but not when the matter in hand is the roads of Andalusia or the customs of Barbary. The author of Vanity Fair might as well have made Becky Sharpe prattle to lord Steyne about the Panama canal, or

23.

have introduced a description of a bull-fight into his lecture on Sterne. Mr. Cayley likewise lets off puns with a perverse and pestilent activity; and although he hath his quiver full of them, he gleans after them with an industry worthy of better aims. Many of his pages are mere (as he would call them) Cayleydoscopes of calembourgs.

One word on the publisher's share in the manufacture of these Alforjas. The question why he has spun out into two volumes, of 302 and 315 pages respectively, matter calculated for a volume of 400 pages, is a question which involves an examination of the vices of our publishing system, and into which want of space forbids us now to enter. The author does not appear to have contemplated more than one volume, and he has designed his title-page accordingly. But if Mr. Bentley has a right to charge eighteen shillings for a book in consideration of its being in a less convenient form than that which would have cost eight shillings, the public has at least a right to expect that it shall be correctly printed, and furnished with proper appliances for reference. So far from this being the case, it is one of the most slovenly and careless productions of a press remarkable for slovenliness and carelessness. It is full of typographical errors, and there is hardly a Spanish word that does not contain a blunder: at page 70, we are referred to a sketch of an olive mill, placed at the head of chapter viii. (p. 54), where no illustration is to be found; there is no list of errata; nor is there any vestige either of an index or even of a table of contents. It is perhaps hardly reasonable to expect that Mr. Bentley should do for the Alforjas what he omitted to do for Mr. Bradford's Correspondence of Charles V., and what he has not yet done for the voluminous Correspondence of Horace Walpole. A book without a table of contents is almost as imperfect as a watch would be without hands; and the omission in the case of the book is the more dishonest on the part of the manufacturer, because it is more apt to be overlooked, and because the article cannot, on account of the omission, be returned by the purchaser.

amongst people whose self-complacency or other little flaws of temper found continual vent and consolation in carping at the times they lived in, to adopt, among the nicknames for their age, that of utilitarian. Such talk is always catching, and so we have since, on most occasions, when it has been thought appropriate to soar a little into eloquence, or deliver some sententious platitudes on things in general, gone on reiterating the form of words, in this our utilitarian age,' &c. There was some degree of truth included in the epithet, or at least it sounded wise and penetrating; but whether wanted as a boast or sarcasm, spouters and leading-article indicters of 1853 must positively do without it, for the utilitarian characteristic of the age is, if not extinguished, at least totally eclipsed; either gone to the lost pleiad and other forgotten luminaries, or darkened by a tenebriferous star' of the first magnitude, in the form of marvel-loving credulity. The words, our utilitarian age,' must therefore be superseded by ' in our believing age.' The age, it is true, considers herself too great and wise to relish quite her new descriptive epithet; she would rather be the enlightened, the acute, the soarer above prejudices, or anything but what she is; but her granddaughters will be just, and many a future tale of olden times will be thus begun :-'It was in the middle of the credulous nineteenth century,' &c. Let us borrow for a moment one of the lights of this nineteenth century, and by clairvoyant' assistance anticipate the words of an historian of 1913 describing a scene in a London drawing-room in the month of May sixty years since.

Groups of talkers fill the room; an observer threading quietly amongst them might overhear in every one a repetition of the same conversation :The fact is not to be disputed-None but the obstinate can contravene the evidence-I felt it go-The table forced itself away beneath our hands - We stood three quarters of an hour, really

only half convinced; but lo! it wentThree of our family possess the power; the rest do not-I thought I was without it, until I found it was my bracelet and my rings that kept it under-I, too, feared it was not in me, but I willed, and then it came. All were alike discussing a prodigious novelty-the revelation of a locomotive power in tables of mahogany, oak, or rosewood, or any other wood that artisan might lay his hands on. Three-fourths of every group consisted of vociferous believers, their hearts full of gall and bitterness against a fraction of the other fourth, composed of stiff-necked infidels. The remaining fraction maintained an umpire-like composure; these, calmly impartial, dared not contravene irrefragable evidence; they were above credulity, but they thought there must be something in it. The unconverted few having vainly tried to edge in broken syllables, on commonsense, and science, took refuge in uneasy smiles, trying to resign their spirits to the state of things. In another — a smaller assembly-the groups were less communicative: they were busy. In the words of Dr. Chalmers, Nature was being interrogated. In each experiment, four or five pairs of hands were resting by the finger-points upon a hat-the heads were very close, and the bracelets left with the mammas. Stay,' cried a fair experimenter, two ladies side by side will never do.' The group is fresh disposed-dame and cavalier; listen ;— Nature gives her answer. 'It tremblesI feel it tremble,' cries the vain fair one.

With forty fingers on it. Prodigious !' is the daring murmur of an audacious sceptic; but the interruption does no harm-the ignorant disbelief is silenced by concentrated frowns of scorn from all the hat-operators, and Nature goes on. The hat whirls round, and with it whirl along the triumphant discoverers of truth.