354 Mr Arnotfs Tour to the South of France 



Barcelona is situated in the midst of an extensive cultivated 

 plain ; scarcely does there appear an elevation higher than the 

 walls any where in it, excepting the fortress of Mont Jouy, 

 wliich rises up steep on all sides close to the town. This plain 

 is bounded by a range of hills on the north, west and south, at 

 about five or ten miles distance. There are some fine public 

 walks within the walls ; but the principal one is the Rambla, 

 similar to the Boulevards at Paris, and is every evening cover- 

 ed from seven or eight until ten o'clock by beaux and belles, 

 who come there to enjoy the cool air, after the heat of the 

 day. The houses are neat, built of stone or brick, and 

 painted over a brown smoky colour, on which is delineated fi- 

 gures of people, or other devices. The town is stored with 

 churches and monasteries ; and there are, I believe, six colleges, 

 and as many hospitals, in one of which there is a cabinet of na- 

 tural history. The Custom-house has a facade of stucco, in 

 imitation of marble, and is a very fine building ; but the Ex- 

 change is much more magnificent, the balusters and rail of the 

 staircase being of finely polished marble. In an upper room 

 was an exhibition of paintings, chiefly done by the students, but 

 scarcely worth the seeing. There was here exposed a draw- 

 ing of a plant that has hung suspended from a wire out of a 

 window for several years, without receiving any nourishment 

 but what it receives from the atmosphere : it bore the name 

 of Amalia aerisincola. 



Barcelona possesses a small botanical garden, to which is at- 

 tached a professorship, occupied at present by Dr Bahi (after 

 whom Lagasca has named his genus Bahia), an able physician^ 

 and newly returned to Barcelona, after three years of persecution 

 that he has suffered under the different governments that have 

 succeeded each other in Spain, Having been the first to declare 

 that the disease that made here such ravages in 1822 was the 

 yellow fever, he drew upon himself the enmity of the merchants 

 of every class, who saw that their projects were to be injured 

 by the measures taken to prevent contagion. Accused of ser- 

 vility under the constitutional regime, and of Uberalism under the 

 present government, he was obliged to conceal himself for a long 

 time among the mountains in the interior ; and it was but lately 

 he obtained permission to return to Barcelona, to recommence his 



