PREFACE IX 



men who, during that year, reached the capital, amounti-d 

 to twelve, as I was informed by the excellent British 

 Consul at Christiania. With Spain a^^ain, since the 

 opening of railways within the last few years, communi- 

 cation is now easy and direct, and we must, in returning 

 from our recent tour described in these pages, have en- 

 countered therein twenty British tourists for every one we 

 met in 1861, when we worked our way painfully and 

 laboriously through the length and breadth of Spain, in 

 those most uneasy and ponderous of vehicles, the old- 

 fashioned, clumsy Spanish diligences. 



But I need not multiply examples. The famous Pen- 

 insula and Oriental Company has found it necessary to 

 charter a steamer every week from Marseilles, as well as 

 from Southampton ; though there are several other lines 

 of communication lately opened with the east, by way 

 of Brindisi at the Southern extremity of Italy, as well as 

 by Trieste and Corfu ; and the same multiplication of 

 steamers (the surest proof of increased traffic) may be 

 observed at almost every port at home and abroad. 



But if this is the case with regard to the general 

 summer tourist, it is tenfold more apparent with the 

 winter and spring migrants, to w^hose periodical move- 

 ments I have alluded above. Twenty years ago, the few 

 who, dreading the cold winters to which the majority of 

 English districts are exposed, thought it necessary to seek 

 a warmer climate, were contented with the very slight 

 advantage in this respect, which the milder atmosphere of 

 Torquay and other sheltered parts of the Devonshire or 

 Cornwall coasts were able to offer; whilst others, more 

 susceptible of cold, and desiring greater warmth than could 



