A Spanish Impossibility 



This little investigation, however, he appears to think it 

 important to make on all travellers passing this way ; and, 

 doubtless, gives the functionaries at the frontier something 

 handsome for every passport they turn back to his 

 office. 



Among the rushes of Junquera, therefore, I am planted 

 for twenty-four hours, till my passport can be sent back, to 

 be rectified, and return. My entreaties and representations 

 were all in vain ; and I now look back with affectionate 

 regret upon my late elastic French impossibilities, where, 

 after all, there is a substratum of reason and benevolence 

 beneath the frothy surface of official formality. 



I drank chocolate, smoked cigarillos, wrote an indignant 

 letter, dined on garlicky victuals, slept well, and set off 

 next morning about the same hour I had arrived the day 

 before. 



The diligence which brought back my passport and took 

 me on to Figueras, brought me also a companion ; — a merry 

 little pot-bellied, snub-nosed Andalusian shipowner, lately 

 from the Brazils, who spoke French in a sort of pentameter 

 cadence. 



He was of some use to me as an interpreter (for though 

 I have been studying a book of dialogues all through 

 France, I have not yet acquired the Spanish idiom), and 

 managed well enough when there was plain sailing ; but in 

 any difficulty he fell soft and was easily done. But he had 

 his merits, which consisted principally in eating and drinking, 

 and laughing heartily. 



At Figueras I ate more garlic, and nearly made myself 

 sick by inhaling a cigarito of English tobacco. My com- 

 panions at the mesa redonda (table d'hote) said they had 

 never seen an Englishman smoke the cigarette before. I 

 told them that I did that and ate ajo (garlic), " pour faire 



56 



