704 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1880, 
castle, also at Chambord, to which we drove. Two 
nights there and three at Tours. The cathedral 
charmed us; also the old houses and ruined bits and 
towers. We passed Amboise, and went from Tours 
to Chenonceaux and back by railway,—a bijou to be 
enjoyed; but the next day’s excursion to Loches had 
a much deeper and more varied interest. By travel- 
ing over night to Bayonne and passing Biarritz at 
sunrise, a noble sunrise and morning, with the Atlan- 
tic on one side and the Cantabrian Pyrenees on the 
other, we gained the privilege of a daylight journey 
from Irun to Burgos. It is far more picturesque and 
striking than I had supposed. A day at Burgos was 
a treat, as you may suppose. Leon lay out of our 
track and demanded night hours and night changes 
too severe and too formidable for a couple ignorant of 
Spanish and impatient of couriers. So we went on 
overnight to Madrid (night travel being inevitable) ; 
and here we had a warm, sunny, busy, and most en- 
joyable week, some pleasant home-friends for compan- 
ions, as also a charming Spanish family, M. and 
Mme. Riafio, whom we had met at our minister’s, 
Lowell, at London. She is a daughter of Gayangos 
and had an English mother ; is a charming mixture of 
Spanish and English and everything that is bright 
and good. Then there was a raree-show not to be 
matched out of Spain: the royal family with the in- 
fanta going to church in state, the grand procession 
kindly going and returning under our windows. The 
Armeria and, still more, the Archeological Museum 
were full of the Old World things we Americans dote 
on. And then the great picture-gallery, supplemented 
not a little by the Academia San Fernando. Add to 
