ish (perhaps, in this respect, the richest European
language) hardly sufficed for his supply. He therefore selected some of
the more picturesque specimens for more frequent repetition. These, in
default of topics of conversation, sometimes served instead of a fit of
laughter or a nap: and once or twice he hastily lowered the window, and
gave vent to a string of about twenty oaths at the highest pitch of his
lungs; then shut it deliberately, and remained silent for a minute.
During dinner he cut a whole cheese into lumps, with which he stuffed an
unlucky lap-dog, heedless of the entreaties of two fair
fellow-travellers, proprietors of the condemned quadruped. This was a
Carlist warrior!

The inhabitants of the Basque provinces are a fine race, and taller than
the rest of the Spaniards. The men possess the hardy and robust
appearance common to mountaineers, and the symmetry of form which is
almost universal in Spain, although the difference of race is easily
perceptible. The women are decidedly handsome, although they also are
anything but Spanish-looking; and their beauty is often enhanced by an
erect and dignified air, not usually belonging to peasants, (for I am
only speaking of the lower orders,) and attributable principally to a
very unpeasant-like planting of the head on the neck and shoulders. I
saw several village girls whom nothing but their dress would prevent
from being mistaken for German or English ladies of rank, being moreover
universally blondes. On quitting Vitoria, you leave behind you the
mountains and the pretty faces.

For us, however, the latter were not entirely lost. There were two in
the Diligence, belonging to the daughters of a Grandee of the first
class, Count de P. These youthful senoritas had taken the opportunity,
rendered particularly well-timed by the revolutions and disorders of
their country, of passing three years in Paris, which they employed in
completing their education, and seeing the wonders of that town,
_soi-disant_ the most civilized in the world; which probably it would
have been, had the old _regime_ not been overthrown. They were now
returning to Madrid, furnished with all the new ideas, and the various
useful and useless accomplishments they had acquired.

Every one whose lot it may have been to undertake a journey of several
days in a Diligence,--that is, in one and the same,--and who
consequently recollects that trembling and anxious moment during which
he has passed in