HE London season of 1859 is nearly over. The parks and gardens are rapidly emptying, the theatres and opera-houses are beginning to manifest signs of shutting up, the Royal Academy is about to be closed, the Thames and Serpentine are exhaling mephitic vapours, Parliament is on the eve of being

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prorogued, the heat is becoming intolerable, and every one is hurrying out of town, bound for the country, the seaside, or the Continent. I can brook no further delay in the metropolis, and long to flee from its deserted streets, to enjoy my hard-earned vacation in foreign climes. Whither shall I bend my steps? I have a month to spare, and all Europe lies before me. By chance I take up a work on Spain, teeming with graphic accounts of its bull-fights, baylarinas, Andalusian beauties, Alhambra glories, and Moorish relics. The die is cast! To Spain I will wing my flight and revel for a transient period in that dreamy land of romance and bygone chivalry.

I confess that a lurking desire to witness a real bull-fight (I have laughed heartily over the sham one in Leicester Square) forms one of my chief inducements to visit Spain, that I may see and judge for myself of the excitement, disgust, pity, pleasure, or pain, arising from the tauromachian sport so enthusiastically upheld by the Spanish nation, and so universally condemned and execrated by the other civilized nations of the globe. Moreover, as my fidus Achates, my well-beloved coz, Julius Carol (who has resided for some years in Spain, and is of course thoroughly up in its vernacular, manners, and customs), is about to return after spending his vacation in

DOVER TO CALAIS.

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England, we can travel together, at least as far as his destination.

The journey decided on, and all preparations made, the day long and anxiously expected at length arrives, and on the night of the 29th July we find ourselves flitting along to Dover by the mail train, and before midnight are on board the Impératrice (or "Hempress," as the steward calls her), fuming and fretting in the harbour, apparently as anxious as her living freight to proceed on her voyage. In a few minutes the deck resounds with the cry of "any one for the shore?" followed by the orders to rope!" to "let go!" and finally to "move her ahead!"

"cast off the head

The night is pitchy dark; the silence is only broken by the shouts echoing from captain to steersman to "starboard" and "port" the helm, till at length, the lights of Dover beginning to fade in the distance, the final order to "steady steady" is given, the captain descends from his perch, we are fairly out of the harbour, and la belle France lies before us. The gallant boat speedily runs into Calais Harbour ; and crossing quickly over the gangway we tread the shores of France. A couple of dirty douaniers direct us to the station where our passports are visé by three dreary old birds sitting behind a counter, peering lugubriously through their spectacles in solemn

conclave: this grave and important business over, we are soon seated in a luxurious railway carriage and whirling along to Paris.

Waking early in the gray morning dawn from a disturbed slumber, I find my fellow-travellers peacefully sleeping. Julius lies coiled up on the seat, his whole frame quivering and swaying with the rapid motion of the train, yet he sleeps like a top and snores like a trooper. We flit past rich corn-fields,

straggling villages, solitary buildings, undulating plains, and desolate stations, all looking wholly deserted and decidedly chilly. I take forty winks, and on again awakening find that we are approach