ry inopportune arrival off this town,
at a moment when all the world, functionaries, &c., are on tiptoe
expecting a new Captain-General to make his appearance at any hour.
However, Castilian hospitality is not to be taken in default, and at 4
P.M. we landed with great ceremony, and after being conducted to the
palace, and exchanging a few glances with the acting Governor, who
cannot speak a word of any language known to me, I was shown a
magnificent suite of apartments destined for me and my following, and
then conveyed for a drive in one of the carriages-and-four (_vide_ Sir
J. Bowring's book), escorted by a guard of lancers. It is very curious
to see a state of things so different from ours. Such a number of
troops; gens-d'armes on horseback; not a person meeting us (the
Governor-General was with me) who did not take off his hat. At dinner
I sat next the Admiral, who also speaks nothing but Spanish; so we
passed our time in looking at each other unutterable things.

[Sidenote: Churches.]

_Ten A.M._--I have just got rid of my uniform, in which I thought it
proper to attire myself in order to receive all the officers, naval
and military, who came at nine o'clock to pay their respects. I had
strolled out much earlier _incognito_, and wandered into several
churches. They abound here, as do monks of all orders. The decorations
seemed tinselly enough, but _there_ was the Catholic ritual, with its
sublime suggestions and trivial forms, repeating itself under the
equator in the extreme East, as it repeats itself at Paris or Madrid,
and under Arctic or Antarctic circles. And _here_, as _there_, at
these early morning services, were a few solitary women assisting;
some of them commonplace-looking enough, but others, no doubt, with a
load of troubles to deposit at the altar, or in the ear of the monk in
the box, heavy enough to furnish the burden of many such romances as
those which thrill the public sensibilities in our days. After all,
when the horrors which have brought about the result are past and
forgotten, there _is_ something gained by that truculent Spanish
system which forces the faith upon all who come within its reach.
_Fais-toi chretienner, ou je t'arrache l'ame_, as Charlemagne (not a
Spaniard, by the way, so there my illustration halts) said to his
heathen enemies. There is somet