1861.] BOTANY OF SPAIN. 227 



surpassed my expectation was the inns. My experience is indeed 

 limited to a few provinces. There, however, they are not only, in 

 the great towns, very tolerable, but even in small roadside places 

 we found them equal to the small country inns of France. The 

 hotels of Madrid, indeed, cannot be compared to those of the 

 great towns of France, and are inferior to those of some places 

 in Spain itself; but Madrid, except in being the seat of the 

 government and Court, is the capital of Castile rather than of 

 Spain. At Barcelona, Valencia, and Zaragoza, there are hotels 

 about on a par with those of provincial towns of secondary rank 

 in France; while not only at places like Tarragona or Guada- 

 laxara, but even at an insignificant village like Alcolea, on the 

 plateau of Castile, a hamlet distinguished by nothing but by 

 being one of the stopping-places of the diligences from Madrid to 

 Zaragoza, we found a roadside inn at which it was possible to 

 sleep and even to make some stay in comfort. I should not in- 

 deed advise any one to travel in these provinces in the months 

 of August and September, both on account of the heat, and of 

 the plague of insects which might at that season be- expected. 

 But these months are later or earlier than a botanist in the 

 south of Europe has any inducement to travel. Botanists, 

 walking tourists, and all who are accustomed to penetrate into 

 the nooks and corners of a country, will find Spain, in the present 

 day, no more closed to them than any other part of Europe. 



I should not presume to offer as worthy of attention, such 

 fragmentary notices as I could pick up in a mere run through 

 any country whose botany was known, and which possessed local 

 Floras. Even as regards Spain, my passing observations have 

 little of the value which would belong to those of a profound 

 botanist. My only qualifications are deligbt in the subject, and 

 some acquaintance with a considerable portion of the general 

 Flora of Southern Europe. I have therefore to apologize be- 

 forehand for many deficiencies, and doubtless for some errors. 

 It requires a really good botanist to investigate the plants of a 

 country, with a universal ''Species Plautarum '^ for his sole guide : 

 neither can a traveller carry about with him De Candolle's ' Pro- 

 dromus^ and Kunth's ^Enumeratio,' which, moreover, even joined 

 together, are not complete ; and to determine plants by them 

 afterwards from dried specimens, is a task of which every one 

 knows the diflficultv. The books I had with me were the ' Flore 



