Idiomatic Stimulants 



sortir la langue Espagnole en m'accoutument la bouche aux 

 usages du pays," — to bring out the Spanish tongue by 

 accustoming my mouth to the usages of the country. 



The diligence stopped at Gerona to sup and sleep. It 

 seems a stirring little city, all the inhabitants walking about 

 in the lamplight. We set off again at two in the morning. 

 Our road lay along the sea-coast, and was sometimes cut 

 out of the face of the rocks overhanging the beach. We 

 breakfasted at Mataro, and took the railway (which also 

 skirts the sea) to Barcelona. 



Here I washed myself, and my companion shaved and 

 dressed himself very smart in new clothes which he had 

 brought from Marseilles. I was admitted to his levee^ and 

 was consulted as to the several articles of apparel he 

 selected from his trunk ; for, like David with respect to 

 Saul's regimentals, " he had not proved them." 



It was rather comical to see this squat, swarthy little 

 object trundling about in his dirty stockings and drawers, 

 sorting and selecting his gaudy garments with as much 

 care and hopeful anxiety about the effect he was about to 

 produce on Barcelona, as if — but there is no difference 

 between Hyperion and the Satyr when they look at them- 

 selves in the glass. It is a beautiful arrangement of Nature, 

 that the snub-noses and pudding-faces, which so trans- 

 parently mask the vanity behind them, are objects of such 

 genuine interest to us. 



More bother with my passport before I could take my 

 place in the steamer for Valencia — more cheating of com- 

 missioners — more triple bars of inefficient douanerie^ which 

 pretends to examine, whether you come in or go out, and 

 is bribed by ignoble sums to let it alone. 



The steamer stops a day at Valencia. I went up from 

 El Grao in a tartana, breakfasted, and ascended the cathe- 



57 



