BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 405 
numerous, and soon the clusters of intervening country- 
houses united them to Barcelona, which spreads majestically 
over a plain, lying at the base of a chain of verdant hills. 
South of this town, and near the water's edge, rises a conical 
hillock, named Montjouy, and surmounted by a fort, whose 
position must render it almost impregnable. 
The aspect of Barcelona is more European, and, therefore, 
less striking to a stranger than that of almost every other 
city in the Peninsula. The women, however, generally con- 
tinue to wear the poetical mantilla; it is black, and trimmed 
with lace in the higher classes. and white or coloured for the 
other sorts of people. The head-covering which this article 
forms is eminently graceful, but some of the Barcelona 
Jashionables are beginning to substitute a bonnet, which they 
would presently discard if they were aware how much more 
becoming is their national costume. The men of the lower 
orders wear the long cap, called a gorra, and which serves 
them for a pocket and place of deposit for every thing they 
carry; they are picturesquely wrapped in their mantas, a 
Square piece of drapery, occasionally decorated with tassels 
and embroidery, and, too often, fringed all round from much 
wear and poverty. 
I had only an afternoon to spend at Barcelona, and had 
but time to visit the port, the noble walk along the Sea Wail, 
and the promenade called the Rambla, planted with trees and 
much crowded with company ; and in the evening I was pre- 
sent at a Tertulla, a Spanish soirée, to which a friend was so 
kind as to introduce me, and where I found much less na- 
tional peeuliarity than I had expected, though plenty of the 
vivacity, cordiality, and absence of pretension, which form 
such pleasing traits of the different southern populations. 
There was dancing to the music of the pianoforte ; not, how- 
ever, the Bolero and Fandango, but the Mazurka, Galopade, 
and newest Parisian Quadrilles. I noticed that several of 
the ladies were closely beset by their cortejos, a species of 
lover Or betrothed admirer, who never moved from their 
sides, but mounted guard over them with the most edifying 
gravity and taciturnity. 
