The River Manzanares-Site of Madrid-Its Early History and Development-Aspect of the City-The Puerta del Sol The Streets and Public Places-Scenes in the Plaza Mayor-Autos de Fé-Terrors of the Inquisition-The PradoThe Churches of Madrid-The Legend of Our Lady of Atocha-The Palaces-The Museum, and its Marvellous Collection of Pictures-Pleasure-places-A Bull-fight-The Escorial.

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T is a well-known fact of European geography that Madrid is on the Manzanares, but it may not be so generally known that in scarcely any other great city of Europe does the contiguous river form so inconspicuous and insignificant a feature. The Manzanares, in spite of its high-sounding name, is only a mountain torrent, rising some eight leagues away, in the defile of Navicerrada, and only attaining to respectable dimensions when swollen by the melting of the winter The river has, in consequence, been one of the standing jokes of Europe for centuries. Alexandre Dumas tells how he and his son went on the bridge known as the Puente de Toledo, and came away disappointed at not being able to discover the river. A certain German ambassador declared that the Manzanares was the best river he had ever seen, for it was navigable either on horseback or in a carriage. It is recorded that when Ferdinand II. took a fancy to walk along the river-bed, it was necessary to have it well watered in order to lay the dust. It is said that when Napoleon's troops entered the city, they cried out, "What! has the river run away too?" Numerous are the stories and bon-mots that might be quoted referring to this waterless river. "Give it to the Manzanares; it needs it more than I do," is the reported speech of a young man to whose lips a cup of cold water was pressed in a moment of faintness at a bull-fight. At certain seasons of the year, however, the Manzanares becomes a broad stream, and

Philip II. was quite right in building the Puente de Segovia, a substantial stone structure of nine arches, 695 feet in length. Of this bridge Madame d'Aulnoy pleasantly chats: "When strangers see the bridge, they begin to laugh; it seems to them so absurd to find a bridge where there is no water. One visitor said he would advise the city to sell the bridge in order to buy some water with the proceeds."

The site of Madrid is 2,450 feet above the sea-level, so it is little wonder that no navigable river washes its walls. The city occupies the centre of a vast sandy plain, bounded by mountains to the north, but stretching to the horizon on the three other sides. Its atmosphere is extremely rare, and its thermometrical changes frequent and violent. In sunny streets and squares protected from the north it is possible to be almost scorched with tropical heat, and the next moment, on suddenly turning a corner, to encounter icy blasts from the snow-clad Guadaramas, cutting the lungs like cold steel. Still, with ordinary precautions good health may be enjoyed by healthy persons, though, of course, to some constitutions residence at Madrid would mean speedy death. Since 1854 the canal of Lozoya has brought plenty of good water to the city; before that time it is said that there was hardly enough to drink, and, of course, none left for ablutions. Most of the traditional discomforts of Madrid have been obviated of late years by improved public supervision and sanitary arrangements.

Although decidedly central, Madrid was by no means easily accessible from the rest of the kingdom until the recent developments of the Spanish railway system; and had not its rarefied atmosphere proved so beneficial to the gouty Emperor Charles V., it would probably have remained a second or third-rate provincial town. Of the origin of Madrid various wild stories are told, one chronicler affirming that it was founded soon after the Deluge, and others, ten centuries before Rome. Upon the ruined Arco de Santa Maria were found certain characters which Juan Lopos de Hoyos, the friend of Cervantes, decided to be Chaldean, and argued therefrom that the said arch was built by Nebuchadnezzar on the occasion of his passing through Madrid. Probably in consequence of the comments of various travellers, the Guida Oficiale has of late ceased to give the year of the city, although in 1864 gave the year of Rome as 2616 and of Madrid as 4033! And now the Madrileños take refuge in vague generalities, asserting that the origin of their city is lost in the night of time.

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All attempts to identify Madrid with the Mantua Carpetanorum of the Ptolemaic tables, or with the Miacum of the Romans, have proved a failure, the fact being that the place was never heard of in history till the tenth century. The Moors were then masters of Toledo, and held a strongly fortified advanced post named Mazerit, which was captured in 933 by Don Ramiro II., the King of Leon; it again fell into the power of the Arabs, but was finally wrested from them in 1083 by Alfonso VIII. A Christian population settled here; Kings of Leon and Castille made it their occasional residence; and Madrid was gradually emerging from its obscurity when Charles V. came, found the climate well suited to his constitution, and bestowed various favours and privileges on the city, which were extended by his son Philip II., who definitively abandoned Toledo, and made Madrid the capital of the immense Spanish dominions. Formerly there had been several capitals in Spain, but the new order of things made it necessary that there should be a capital with no historic memories,

either Spanish or Moorish, and free from either sympathies or jealousies to impede the central authority and administration. The ancient walls were removed, the city was enlarged, and most of the principal streets date from the time of Philip II.

During the sixteenth century the now barren environs of Madrid were covered with forests, to which royal and noble hunters resorted to slay the bear and the wild boar; the city continued to grow and was embellished and improved by various kings, but in a confused and irregular manner, even while grand, regularly built cities were growing up in the Spanish

dominions beyond the Atlantic; and even in the seventeenth century travellers visiting Madrid described the condition of the streets as intolerably bad; the houses were without drainage or other sanitary appliances, and woe betided the nocturnal wanderer who did not get out of the way quickly enough when the shout of "Agua va!" was heard from a window above him. Matters in this respect were not much improved during the early part of the eighteenth century; the air was so bad that silver could not be kept from tarnishing, and the effect on the public health was most disastrous. But in 1760, Charles III. bestirred himself to purify and renovate his capital; the streets were cleansed and paved; sanitary appliances were introduced; monumental edifices, gates, and fountains were reared; and spacious promenades and gardens were formed. The city was transformed, and ever since that time has been growing increasingly worthy of its position as the capital of a great country.

During the present century Madrid has witnessed many stirring scenes. It was entered by the French under Murat on March 23, 1808; struggles, tumults, and insurrections followed, until in December of that year Napoleon took possession of the city, and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain. He ruled at Madrid till Wellington and the English troops entered the city after the battle of Salamanca, in 1812; but in 1823 the French troops were again in Madrid under the Duc d'Angoulême, to support the tyrant Ferdinand VII. Since that time insurrections and revolutions have been very frequent in Madrid, as well as various émentes connected with the alternate elevation to power of Espartero, Narvaez, O'Donnell, and other ministers. In 1868, after Serrano had defeated the royal army at Alcolea, Madrid declared the dethronement of Isabella II., and welcomed Prim with enthusiasm; but as far as the capital was concerned, the revolution was unmarked by violence or destruction.

Since then Madrid has passed through many eventful experiences the provisional government, the short-lived reign of Amadeus of Savoy, the republic, the accession of Alfonso XII.—and now it is to be hoped that the path of peaceful and prosperous development has been reached.

Madrid at the present day has a population of 367,284, and has considerably outgrown its ancient limits; a railway system connects it with the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean, Portugal, and France, thus linking to itself all the most important towns of the peninsula.

The aspect of the city as it is approached is very fine; on every hand new plantations are springing up to replace the long-absent forests of old days; around the city runs a wellplanted boulevard, with numerous shady walks diverging from it; while, within, spires and domes innumerable rise glittering in the sun. The interior town is about 1 miles long by 1 broad. Towards the south-west are found the most ancient houses, lining the sides of narrow winding streets, and in the central and eastern quarters are spacious and well-lighted streets, built in accordance with modern taste—or want of taste; but throughout the city there is very little to be seen of a Moorish, Mediæval, or early Spanish type, while everywhere Parisian shops and tall houses with gaily-painted stucco fronts abound.

The heart of the city is the Puerta del Sol-not a gate, as its name would imply, but a public place, named after some sun-adorned portal that has long since disappeared. It is at the confluence of nine of the most frequented streets of the city, and has often been compared to the Agora at Athens, or the Forum at Rome. Here the idlers and seekers after news congregate, lounging and smoking round the central fountain or sauntering under the veloria on the sunny side. But it is likewise a scene of busy activity and is on the way to everywhere. "To whichsoever point of the Madrilenian compass you may be bound," says George Augustus Sala, "whether it be to the Prado, to the Palace, to the Church of our Lady of Atocha, to the Montana del Principe Pio, to dinner, to the club, the tertalia— one of the cosy and elegant little broughams which may be hired here for two shillings an hour-is sure to take you through the Puerta del Sol. All roads lead to Rome, they say: all streets converge in the Puerta. The golden coach of royalty, the dog-cart of the dandy pollo, the sparkling chariot of the diplomatist, the brewer's dray, the mules' team, and the hearse-all cross each other there. It is at once the Gate of Ivory and the Gate of Horn; all the glittering shams and all the sad realities of Spain meet at the confluence of the nine streets. It is the road to the Palace and the road to the cemetery."

The buildings round the Puerta del Sol are high and regular, displaying an abundance of huge advertisement boards, but nothing characteristic of Spanish architecture. Here are the grandest and dearest hotels and cafés of Madrid, and plenty of rich and elegant shops mostly occupied by foreign tailors, modistes, jewellers, vendors of articles de Paris and suchlike things. On the south side stands the Gobernacion (Ministry of the Interior), an imposing but somewhat heavy building. The buildings on the east side replaced the old Church of i Buon Sucesso, whose clergy enjoyed the special privilege of performing mass up to two o'clock in the afternoon, so that the edifice was a favourite place of devotion with laterising fashionables.

In front of the old Church of Buon Sucesso broke out the insurrection against the French in May, 1808. Joachim Murat with 25,000 French soldiers was holding the city ; the Spanish King was detained at Bayonne, and Napoleon had sent orders for the queen and children to be sent there also. It is said that Murat was seeking occasion to intimidate the Madrileños, and ostentatiously sent away the royal family in broad daylight. A tumult broke out-a French officer passing the excited crowd was unhorsed, and a few French soldiers in various parts of the city massacred. Murat took a bloody revenge. Before noon his artillery had swept the streets and squares, and soldiers had fired volleys down the cross-streets, until tranquillity was restored. To make the intimidation more complete, great numbers of artisans and labourers were shot during the following night, for being found bearing arms-that is to say, they wore the clasp-knives universally carried by men of their class.

The Puerta del Sol has been the birthplace of most of the émeutes and insurrections so prominent in modern Spanish history, and the wall of the Gobernacion is riddled with shotmarks. But these events were seldom marked by special features of interest, and their results were generally transitory. To-day (in spite of the loungers) the Puerta del Sol is gay with busy life and industry. A noisy, ceaseless, open-air traffic is going on all around; all the journals of Madrid are sold here, mostly by women and children, whose shrill voices, especially towards evening, when the most popular sheets appear, make a perfect babel. Here, too, are the clamorous men and urchins, half-clad and often barefoot, who vend cerillos (wax matches). Your true Spaniard is always smoking, but he smokes in a lazy fashion; his cigar is perpetually going out, and the consumption of wax matches is something prodigious. Very prominent also are the vendors of cold water, who, carrying in one hand their straw-wrapped stone bottle, and in front of them a tray of half-pint glasses and a stock of azucarillos (rose-flavoured biscuits made of sugar-paste), shout vociferously, "Agua! Quien quiere agua?" and do a roaring trade, for the copious imbibition of cold water is another of the favourite pursuits of a Madrileño. At the corners of the streets diverging from the Puerta stand the mozos de cordel, mostly sturdy Asturians, each with a rope round his body or over his shoulder, ready to tie together and convey to any part of the city the luggage that may be committed to his care. Street-vendors of various trifles solicit the patronage of the passers-by, while in the open space where once was a fruit-market, cab-drivers crack their whips beside the principal cab-stand of Madrid. The crowds thronging the side pavements show very little Spanish costume amongst them; the Parisian bonnet has almost universally displaced the graceful mantilla. Occasionally, however, in times of excitement—