RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 



Madrid and Toledo 



THE railways in Spain are proverbially slow, yet we 

 found that they went at a fair speed, even judged by 

 American ideas. There was a good reason in part 

 for their slowness. The railways of Spain, with the excep- 

 tion of a comparatively short stretch on the Northern Rail- 

 way out of Madrid, are single track, and they are rather to 

 be compared with our railroads west of the Mississippi River 

 than with those in the east. But we found the sleeping cars 

 quite comfortable and with much more privacy than is usual 

 in the American pullman car. The fast expresses have a letter 

 box or slot on the side of the mail car, and it is no infrequent 

 sight at the country stations to see the people come trooping 

 down to meet the train to mail their letters. 



The landscape through Castile and New Castile looks deso- 

 late and deserted to American eyes, so accustomed to farm- 

 houses nestling among the trees. There are no trees in Cas- 

 tile and but few in New Castile. The Spanish countryman 

 has an idea that trees afford merely lodging places for the 

 birds to lie in wait and steal the grain the farmer plants. 

 A Castilian proverb says that a lark has to bring his own pro- 

 visions with him when he visits Castile. The rolling country 

 and distant hills seem from the railway like large brown sea 

 waves hardened into earth. Still the Spanish peasant is a 

 painstaking and hard-working farmer. His fields are tilled 

 with all the care and minuteness of a garden. Every bit of 

 land on either side of the railway track was under cultiva- 

 tion and we were told, produced good crops. As the Span- 

 ish peasantry dwell in villages and not in scattered farm houses 

 and go abroad to till their fields, the landscape seemed curi- 

 ously desolate to American eyes accustomed to the familiar 

 farm house and barn every few miles. 



Arriving at Madrid, at the Atocha Station, at the southern 



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