covered the patches so
absolutely bald twenty-four hours ago. The seed we had seen sown had
sprung up as thickly as finest cut velvet. _Cosa de Espana_, indeed! It
is not always in Spain--the land of the unexpected--that _Manana
veremos_ is foolishness.

Until after Christmas the winter in Madrid is charming, even if it be
cold; the glorious sunshine from dawn to sunset, the fine exhilarating
air, raise one's spirits unconsciously; but very often the old year is
dead before any real cold comes on. I have sat out in the Buen Retiro
many a day in December with book or work, and scarcely any more wrap
than one wears in summer in England. After that there is generally a
cold, and perhaps disagreeable, spell, when the wind comes howling
across the plains straight from the snow and ice, and the Madrileno
thinks it terrible; as a matter of fact, so long as the sky remains
clear, there is always one side of the street where one can be warm.
Sometimes, but not often, the cold weather or the bitter winds last
pretty far into the spring, and it has certainly happened in the depth
of the frost that one of the sentries on duty at the Palace, on the side
facing the mountains, was found frozen to death when the relief came.
After that the watch was made shorter, and the change of guard more
frequent in winter. I have seen the Estanque Grande in the Retiro
covered with ice several inches thick; but as all Madrid turned out to
see the wonder and watch the foreigners skate, a thing that appeared
never to have been seen before, it could not have been a very common
occurrence.

Riding early in the morning in winter outside Madrid, even with the sun
shining brightly and a cloudless sky, the cold was often intense,
especially in the dells and hollows. We have often had to put our hands
under the saddle to keep them from freezing, so as to be able to feel
the reins, and if I were riding with the sun on the off-side, my feet
would become perfectly dead to feeling. But what an air it was!
Something to be remembered, and long before we reached home we were in a
delicious glow. The horses, English thoroughbreds, enjoyed it immensely,
and went like the wind. I have been in Madrid in every part of the year,
and never found it unbearably hot, though one does not generally wait
for July or August; but here again the lightness and dryness of the air
seem to make heat much easier to bear. Numbers of Madrid people think
nothing of remaining there all