438 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



and mitissima, Linum tenue, Linaria viscosa, and Inula Ara- 

 bica, the latter affecting the damp spots ; and a host of Gra- 

 minea, with the most elegant of that family, Briza maxima, 

 waving its golden spikes in the lightest breeze, while the 

 Oleander fringed the brooks, and pointed out their course 

 from afar, by wavy lines of the most delicate pink. 



As following the sea-shore I drew nearer to Gibraltar, that 

 ten or of Spanish Custom-house officers, the towers of obser- 

 vation and parties of posted carbineers became more nume- 

 rous. Five or six occur between Marbella and Estepona, and 

 they are the only inhabited spots which break the solitude of 

 the country. At one of them I found an old soldier, who had 

 travelled in France, and who was delighted, after many long 

 years, to see an individual who spoke the language of that 

 country, and to whom he could sing some French songs, ot 

 which the pronunciation was most curiously altered in his 

 mouth. It has often been my chance, in making excursions, 

 to meet with peasants and shepherds who had been in France 

 as prisoners of war, or at the time of the battle of Toulouse, 

 and they all spoke with affection and respect of my native 

 land and its inhabitants, extolling us often at their own ex- 

 pense. Nowhere did I find, even in Andalusia, a trace of that 

 spirit of hate and fanaticism prevalent among the Spaniards 

 during the French invasion. 



Estepona is a pretty little town, built on the beach ; it is 

 lively, modern, and brilliantly white ; for every house, and 

 even the pavement, being whitewashed anew, monthly a 

 least, you might fancy, at the first look, that the whole **? 

 hewn out of chalk j though if the stranger leaves the two or 

 three narrow streets which join the shore, and turns his steps 

 towards the hills, he will find nothing amid the prickly pe» rs 

 but paltry, shapeless mud-huts, so frail and ill-built, as to 

 afford no shelter, and to be only habitable in this settled and 

 mild climate by the lowest orders of the people. 1 halted at 

 the Posada near the entrance of the town, and took possession 

 of a large apartment, with windows looking upon the sea* 

 As if the vicinity of that English town, of which the roc 



