at Cardona^ in Catalonia, 64-3 



is rather amusing, and was told me with great glee by my 

 host at Cardona. Charles III., the only wise man in his 

 family, as the Spaniards call him, hearing of the great value 

 of the mountain, determined to get it into his own clutches ; 

 and for that purpose observed carelessly one day to the Duke 

 of Medina- Celi, that he understood his salt possessions brought 

 him in a large annual rent. " A mere trifle," replied the duke, 

 who, like all Spaniards, wished to conceal his wealth, naming 

 about one third of the actual amount. " If that is the case," 

 rejoined the king, " I will give you double, and make as much 

 more out of them as I can." To hear, in those despotic times, 

 was to obey ; and thus the Duke of Medina-Celi lost one of 

 the fairest possessions of his powerful house : for, as may 

 easily be imagined, from the proverbial good faith of a Bour- 

 bon, after the death of that king, the promised tribute was 

 never paid, and they now belong entirely to the queen regent, 

 who farms them out to a merchant at Barcelona. 



" Spain," said Bowles (an Englishman by birth, but a 

 Spaniard by adoption, who was employed by Charles III. to 

 inspect and report on the then state of the mines), sixty or 

 seventy years ago, " is, to the naturalist, a virgin land" {una 

 tierra virgen); and such — in spite of her beautiful marbles, 

 unrivalled by those of any country upon earth ; her noble 

 forests; her numerous mines ; and splendidly plumaged-birds 

 (among them the roller; the bee-eater, which I met with in 

 May last, as common as swallows, along the banks of the Tagus, 

 between Toledo and Aranjuez; the azure-winged jay, &c.), 

 vying with the most magnificent species of the torrid zone, in 

 brilliancy and variety of colouring — she has since continued, 

 and appears still destined to remain. No one, indeed, in their 

 senses, would naturalise in a country, where, in addition to the 

 chance of being stripped naked, soundly bastinadoed, and left 

 tied to a tree all night (for such is the mode of punishment 

 inflicted by those worthies, Spanish robbers, on any person 

 who has the misfortune to fall into their clutches, and whose 

 purse does not appear to them sufficiently well lined with 

 dollars), a naturalist is subject to such barbarous treatment as 

 I received, though my passport was perfectly regular, in Ja- 

 nuary last, in the Catalonian Pyrenees. For four nights I 

 slept in dungeons on straw; one of these nights with irons of 

 the most barbarous description on my feet ; for two days and 

 a half I was marched through the country bound, like a robber 

 or a cut-throat, hand and foot to my horse with cords ; in 

 company with my guide, who was treated in a similar manner ; 

 under a guard of twelve armed men, to Talarn, the capital of 



T T 2 



