The Spanish Mail. 143 



and of various kinds. Contrary to hearsay and tradition, 

 there was not on board a single guitar, or any resemblance 

 to one, with the exception of my wife's banjo ! Our fellow- 

 passengers appeared an amiable lot of people ; but as only 

 one or two of them knew French, and only one of them 

 spoke English, and as we knew only a few words of Spanish, 

 our conversations with them were naturally short. Having 

 learned at Gibraltar something about the ways of the inhabi- 

 tants of the Peninsula, I bargained, before taking our passage, 

 that there was to be no extra charge for baths, for which 

 the others were liable to be charged three pesetas ; a sum 

 equivalent to half-a-crown. This was high, considering that 

 the material used was simply cold sea water, without any 

 hot water or steam thrown in. The Spaniards treated the 

 extortion with admirable forbearance ; for, with only one re- 

 corded exception, they refrained from bathing during the 

 voyage. In fact, they were quite as dirty in this respect as 

 were English people of good birth a hundred years ago. We 

 roving Englishmen and Irishmen, having adopted from the 

 Hindus the practice of daily ablutions, are accustomed to 

 boast about it as a national characteristic. This tubbing 

 custom has not been adopted very willingly by us, else we 

 would not flourish our bathing-towel and big sponge as 

 obtrusively as we do in the face of less Indianised foreigners. 

 The chaste and brave are not those who respectively talk 

 most about their virtue and their courage. Leaving out 

 such bold innovators as soldiers, sailors, 'varsity and public 

 school men, I venture to say that the average lower middle- 

 class Briton does not have a bath oftener than once a month, 

 and the ordinary British workman not more frequently than 

 once a quarter. There is a good deal of truth in the old 

 story about two workmen who, during the annual excursion 

 given by their employer to his people, went bathing. One, 

 observing the state of his companion's skin, made a remark 

 about its being dirty. ' That's nothing,' replied the other, ' I 

 missed last year's outing.' Then again, there is the ancient 



