The accompanying notes, although not properly coming within the province of history, nor usually detailed in a narrative which

the actors repeat verbally what the prompter reads, they get through their parts with much spirit:-the music is pleasing, and they dance a sort of pas de deur, with castanets, called a bolera, and a fandango, with much exertion, but with very little grace; the women are not active, they make more pleasing actions with their arms than legs, in using the castanets;-the bolera music is simple and pretty.

The churches are good buildings, but the altar pieces gaudy. The Virgin Mary and Infant are in most churches represented by figures three feet high, dressed with much heavy ornament and rich lace, and are preserved in glass cases; the saints also are figures about four feet high, and fixed in niches.

The principal inhabitants of Coruna dress after the English mode, but in the street you seldom see a gentleman without his cloak, which, in all seasons, forms a material part of their dress. The ladies, when walking, wear over their gowns a black silk or stuff petticoat, and, the greater part of them, a mantua like the oblong shawl worn by English ladies,—and, as they have no ornaments on their head, it is brought close over the forehead, and either made to hang loose on the front, or crossed once or twice, and the ends to hang behind ;-some ladies wear this cloak made of crape and of fine lace, black or white. In their houses they are more frequently in black, though in the mornings they wear gowns of English manufacture. Their clothing is remarkably neat about the feet, but the symmetry of their legs and feet is not beautiful; their persons being in general short, it follows that their legs and feet are thick, yet many walk very elegantly. In manners, the Spanish women are remarkably mild, affable, and attractive. The hair, which is allowed to grow very long, is twisted and tied up tight at the back of the head. During war it is a custom with the nobility not to dress gaily, but to appear poor. The poorer sort are similar to the lower orders in this country, and equally as noisy, quarrelsomé, and violent. There is evidently an indolence of disposition prevalent among them, which is highly disgraceful:-men and women sit in the sun for hours during the day, amusing themselves with their thoughts, or else occupied with their fingers in the heads of their neighbours, reclined either on their lap or a stone for convenience. They certainly are not very cleanly in their persons or clothing, and generally are bare-footed as well as bare-headed. The men are stout and well-proportioned, and accustom themselves to a prodigious extent of whiskers. The prevalence of their religious enthusiasm and observances are great obstructions to industry; there are so many saints and holidays,-so many priests and churchmen, that little room is left for exertion. The holidays are observed with more external devotion than the Sundays;-on the latter days dealing is continued, and, except certain house-trades, has no interruption :—on a holy, or a saint's day, it is quite the contrary,—the shops are shut up, and all appearance of trade removed. The mornings are devoted to prayers, and the evenings are spent in a kind of religious pastime,—for the higher order of ladies, who dress themselves more than commonly elegant, wearing white, or coloured satin shoes, and silk stockings, resort to every church in the whole town or citadel, beginning at the most distant, and visit each, repeating certain prayers with much seeming devotion in all of them, and in this manner keep praying their way home, or take a walk on the road to St. Lucia, a small town just without the gates of Coruna.

professes to treat of military occurrences, have been extended to some length, with a view of conveying a just idea of the manners

Smoking is a favourite amusement of the Galicians; exclusive of the luxury it affords, they esteem it a preventative from diseases arising out of colds and damps from the quantity of rain which falls in that province.

On all occasions of public rejoicing the Spaniards express their joy by firing cannon, rockets, illuminations, processions, feasts, and ringing of bells.

Provisions at Coruna are cheaper than the general prices in England. There was some little trade during the time the British were there, in consequence of the port being open. Every article of Spanish manufactory is certainly two centuries behind ours, and not so low-priced. The shops are small and ill-provided. The mules are good-and the horses small; Indian corn, barley, grass, and straw, are the chief provender. The Spaniards have little idea of the utility of horses, except for parading; they accustom them to a heavy, clumsy short-bridle, which throws the horse on his haunches at the risk of a broken jaw and a broken neck. In Galicia they are very small and cheap, but at the time the British troops were there the price was considerably advanced, as the possessors took every advantage they could, and generally obtained their demand.

The soil around Coruna is thin, light, and of very little depth, there being a species of granite stone under-the roads are excellent, but such streets as are not great thoroughfares are rugged, and frequently not paved;-they are swept by felons chained together. The few trees about Coruna are apple, pear, chesnut, date, and plumb. The country abounds with game;-partridges, hares, snipes, woodcocks, and a few pigeons; the partridge is larger and more beautiful than the English partridge, but the hares are similar to ours. The generality of the roads in Galicia are remarkably good, which may be owing, in some measure, to the mode of transplanting heavy goods chiefly on mules. A few ill-constructed carts are employed, drawn by two small bullocks, driven, or rather led, by a stout man, who, walking in front of the animals, leads them with a halter from the head of each; he has a stick with a small pike at the extremity to goad them occasionally;—this vehicle being extremely low, narrow, and clumsy, will carry from six to eight hundred weight; and, as the Spaniards have no idea of greasing the axletree, when loaded, they send forth a horrible noise. The mode of conveyance for travellers is by post, in exactly the same kind of vehicle as represented in Gil Blas,-viz. a carriage similar to a one-horse chaise, covered in, with a platform behind for trunks;—it is drawn by one mule in the shafts, and another as the leader, on which a man rides. The trappings and harness are chiefly made of cords, with leathern ornaments and belts-this machine proceeds about four miles in an hour. A single traveller may hire a mule for himself, which will carry him and his portmanteau :—the man to whom the mule belongs will run before, at the same rate of four miles an hour, but all is tedious and inconvenient. The Spanish stable, at a country inn, is a room in the house, with a sort of manger badly constructed. The cavalry barracks at Coruna are large rooms, forming two sides of a parallelogram, very inconvenient, and, excepting a few for the horses of officers, have neither rack or manger ;—there is generally an ascent of three or four steps to these stables.

The mode of living in Spain is certainly not congenial to that in this country. The first orders take in the morning, either in bed, or soon after they rise, chocolate, with cakes or bread, having first drank some cold water, which is always brought

and customs of a people possessing a great natural reserve and jealousy of strangers, whose character in this respect bore a strong resemblance to that of the British, now, for the first time after the lapse of a century, visiting their shores on terms of amity and mutual confidence; yet the leading features of a Spaniard were totally dissimilar to those of their noble-minded and generous ally. Proud, ignorant and superstitious, their nobler faculties were obscured by the indolence of their lives, and the blind obedience universally paid to the dictates of their crafty priesthood.-But the real energies of the national character, freed from the sloth with which it had been too long encrusted, were now to be called into action, and a series of the most brilliant exploits in the field have proved the Spaniards yet a warlike people, capable of the greatest sacrifices in the cause of liberty.-Their patriotic efforts have, fortunately for the freedom of the world, met with the most cordial assistance from Great-Britain, who had long and successfully resisted, single-handed, the attempts of the French ruler at universal subjugation.

with the chocolate.-The dinner hour is from eleven till two o'clock, seldom later: the tables are about eight feet wide by ten long, covered with one large cloth, and a plateau is generally placed in the centre with figures in wax, and bottles of wine, corked, placed round the rim of it.-Bread covered with a napkin denotes the place of each of the party. The dinners in the best houses consist of soups and a variety of dishes which encircle the plateau.—Each person sitting opposite to a dish, whether of meat, fish, or vegetable, fills his own plate, carves the contents, and hands it round; so that during the whole time of dinner, if a large party, they are continually passing and repassing plates of different meats, &c.-The Spaniards, who are great eaters, fill their plates with something of every sort which passes.--Some of the dishes are palatable to Englishmen; but their meats are covered with oil and garlic. Their soups are good-the meat is generally boiled in large unshapen junks, or in picces, and mixed with potatoes mashed with oil.-The Spaniards rarely eat salt or pepper.-They seldom use a knife except in cutting up the contents of the dish next to them.-A piece of bread and a fork answers their purpose, as to what is on their own plates.-The pastry is particularly good.-The fish is a side dish.-Generally after the soup are two dishes, one of meat boiled, and boiled fowls, together; and the other a sort of stew with sausages, of which garlic is a material ingredient: the vegetables are frequently mixed together.-Strangers eat and drink as they please-no healths drank, &c.-The deserts consist of apples, pears, chesnuts, walnuts, dates, prunes, and olives.-The cloth remains; but napkins on each side of the plateau are taken off before the desert is introduced. There is not that reserve or respect observed by the servants who attend the table, as in England. They laugh at a joke, and set you right when they think you wrong in 1elating a story.-Both men and maid servants throughout the Peninsula are dirty, slovenly, and awkward.

The enthusiasm displayed by the people of Coruña was great; all ranks and descriptions presented themselves for service in the field, to oppose the French, whom they universally appeared to hold in abhorrence and detestation.-There were also at Coruña two regiments of patriots, who seemed particularly anxious in their desire to learn the military art.

Permission being at length received from the Supreme Junta, Sir David Baird directed the embarkation of his troops to take place by brigades, and preparations were made for advancing into the interior. The Lieutenant-General had been accustomed to an Indian army, possessing every facility of moving with comfort, and even luxury; it was now his duty to march an army through a country where it is not without difficulty a party of travellers can obtain food, and which had already been drained by its own troops; besides, his commissaries were not only inexperienced in the business of their department, but ignorant of the language. Some confusion arose respecting the supplies: the orders from the Supreme Junta directed the nation to provide the British troops with whatever they might need, and the Junta at Coruña gave every demonstration of readiness to meet the wishes of their superiors; notwithstanding which, the issue of provisions and forage was tedious and inconvenient.-Sir John Moore, in a letter to Lord William Bentinck, observes," that he is sorry to say, from Sir David Baird he heard nothing but complaints of the Junta of Coruña, who afford him no assistance.-They promise every thing, but give nothing; and after waiting day after day for carts, which they had promised to procure for the carriage of stores, his commissary was at last obliged to contract for them at an exorbitant price. This is really a sort of conduct quite intolerable towards troops that the Spanish government have asked for, and whose advance they are daily pressing."

Owing to these circumstances, Sir David Baird was under the necessity of dividing his army into small detachments, which followed each other at considerable distances: the light brigade was at the head of the column, followed by the brigade of foot guards to St. Jago. They were to make three stages to this town, resting the first night at Carrol, a very filthy and small village; the second night at Ordenes, consisting of a church, and three wretched farm-houses.-These stages were about ten miles each; the third

to St. Jago, is about eighteen English miles.-The conduct of the officers and soldiers of the guards was highly to their credit; from the time they disembarked, fewer excesses were committed by those men than in any regiment of similar numbers, and their officers preferred sharing with them their quarters, than profiting by the billets offered them.-Out of 2,500 men, when they were put in motion, they only left twenty sick at Coruña.-Other regiments, not half their numbers, left twice as many.

The road from Coruña to Carrol exhibits a bare country, few , trees, but here and there a chesnut orchard, and one or two stinted oaks. The little land that bears any cultivation is a wretched proof of the state of agriculture in Galicia.-On quitting Carrol, the road is a gentle ascent for some miles, on the right of which is a valley somewhat better cultivated, with a river running through the centre, and one or two good houses, with rather more wood around. The Lombardy poplars and ash are here and there intermixed, with a few oaks and chesnuts.-The best dwelling appeared to consist of a farm-house and mill, with a tolerable garden and orchard. The cottages are very indifferent, having no chimney; the smoke, consequently, penetrates through all parts of the roof.They have little or no furniture; and pigs, which are certainly of the largest and best-proportioned kind, with the mules, &c. are the inmates of the cottage.-On leaving the vale, the country loses at once all appearance of cultivation, and exhibits a barren heath, interspersed with broom and furze. The road is a continuation of hills till you reach Ordenes. The troops which rested there on their road, found no one thing to refresh them after their fatigue. Whilst on the march, the inclemency of the weather obliged the troops to seek for better shelter than could be found in the quarters allotted them, and to effect this, after coming to a halt, many were obliged to proceed four or five miles further, with a miserable prospect of obtaining some kind of covering during a tempestuous night, but without a regular supply of provisions. The troops were quartered in St. Jago generally in convents; the officers ob tained billets on private families.-The novelty, or perhaps a more generous sentiment, induced the superior orders of the inhabitants to treat the strangers with great hospitality and kindness, and they felt disappointed when delicacy prevented the British officers living entirely with them.-The lower classes, having a different con