17 



From this point, the Tagus proceeds with an in- 

 creased volume of water, and, after washing, a few 

 miles below, the base of the lofty precipitous rock, 

 which forms the site of the old Gothic capitol of 

 Toledo, pursues its course of about four hundred 

 miles to the ocean. 



During my residence in Spain, a bold adventurer 

 set forth in a steam-boat from Aranjue^, for the pur- 

 pose of exploring the river from that place to its 

 mouth. It was the first time that a steam-boat had 

 ever been seen upon its waters, at least, in the inte- 

 rior of the Peninsula. The enterprise' occupied about 

 two months ; regular bulletins of its progress were 

 published in the newspapers, and it was evidently 

 regarded as a matter of some national importance. 

 Compare this state of the internal communications 

 in a kingdom that has been occupied ever since the 

 earliest dawn of history, with the hundred and fifty 

 magnificent steam-boats that are no^v regularly em- 

 ployed upon the Ohio and Mississippi, and you have 

 at least, one remarkable fact,— whatever objections 

 may be urged against them,— in favor of the influ- 

 ence of liberal political institutions. 



III. The grounds and gardens, to which I have 

 alluded, have been laid out chiefly for the private 

 recreation of their owners ; but the art of Horticul- 

 ture is applied to higher and more interesting objects. 

 At Athens, the public gardens were employed by the 

 principal philosophers, as schools, or places of in- 

 struction. One of them, called Academus, or, as it 

 is modernized in English, the Academy, was frequent- 

 ed by Plato ; and in consequence of the great celeb- 

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