PREHISTORIC SCIENCE EN F:^TE. 545 



shaking hands with all. Professor Virchow, talking slowly to a learned 

 confrh'e on the one hand, and M. Henri Martin, deep in an Iberian 

 controversy, on the other. Here was a spruce and speckless French- 

 man, as fresh and bright as in his native Paris ; there, a crumpled 

 German, bearing evident traces of a night in the train. After all, 

 there was ample time to exchange greetings and compliments, as well 

 as for the more important business of eating, as the proverb, " Hurry 

 no man's cattle," is also applied to trains in Spain. A Spaniard in a 

 hui-ry was the one curiosity no member of the Congress was fortunate 

 enough to light on, although every facility to see all the rarities of the 

 country was politely accorded them. 



At last the excruciating sound of the whistle summoned all to en- 

 sconce themselves in their snug corners of the carriages again, and 

 only at daybreak next morning on Sunday, September 19th, to be 

 exact did this first detachment of science, coated with a yet thicker 

 layer of dust, arrive at Lisbon, after thirty-three long hours from 

 Madrid. 



Until last year a direct train accomplished this journey in ten 

 hours less time ; but Spain, tenacious of old traditions, suppressed 

 that train as savoring too much of progress, and consequent Nihilism 

 and dynamite. 



All that Sunday the newly-arrived foreigners talked of nothing but 

 the lovely position of Lisbon, with its many hills and broad Tagus. 

 They much admired the great reservoir of the famous aqueduct with 

 its tail sixteen miles long, and also the cats with no tails at all. Lis- 

 bon literally swarms with cats, and not a few have their ears and tails 

 cropped ; this is a scientific note made by a savant on the spot. There 

 were also many speculations among this festive company as to whether 

 they should get as much dancing as at Pesth, where let not this con- 

 fidential disclosure damage their scientific reputation in the course of 

 one short week did they not fit in three dances, one of which was ex- 

 temporized in the waiting-room of a railway-station, in returning from 

 a ghoul-like expedition, undertaken for the purpose of rifling some 

 dozen Bronze-age graves ? Such was their heartless levity ! After 

 this disclosure it will be no shock to hear that, on the eve of their seri- 

 ous work at Lisbon, most of this frivolous body patronized the bull- 

 fight. In extenuation, it must be admitted that a Portuguese bull-fight 

 is not, like the Spanish, a public shambles and knacker's yard, but a 

 bloodless trial of dexterity, from which the gorgeous cavaliers, on their 

 splendid Andalusian horses, come out unharmed ; and the bull, whose 

 horns are encased in leather-and-iron gloves, is driven out very happily 

 among a herd of tame oxen, whose business and well the sagacious 

 animals understand it is to decoy him out of the arena. 



The following day there was the impressive inauguration of the 

 Congress by the King himself. The hall provided for the seances is 

 the library of a suppressed monastery, where all the old calf and vel- 

 voi,. XVIII. 35 



