interposed the palm of her hand, which was much cut.  He stood for a moment viewing the blood trickling upon the ground, whilst she held up her wounded hand, then with an astounding oath he hurried up the court to the Plaza.  I went up to the woman and said, “What is the cause of this?  I hope the ruffian has not seriously injured you.”  She turned her countenance upon me with the glance of a demon, and at last with a sneer of contempt exclaimed, “Carals, que es eso?  Cannot a Catalan gentleman be conversing with his lady upon their own private affairs without being interrupted by you?” She then bound up her hand with a handkerchief, and going into the room brought a small table to the door, on which she placed several things as if for the evening’s repast, and then sat down on a stool:  presently returned the Catalan, and without a word took his seat on the threshold; then, as if nothing had occurred, the extraordinary couple commenced eating and drinking, interlarding their meal with oaths and jests.

We spent the night at Medina, and departing early next morning, passed through much the same country as the day before, until about noon we reached a small venta, distant half a league from the Duero; here we reposed ourselves during the heat of the day, and then remounting, crossed the river by a handsome stone bridge, and directed our course to Valladolid.  The banks of the Duero in this place have much beauty:  they abound with trees and brushwood, amongst which, as we passed along, various birds were singing melodiously.  A delicious coolness proceeded from the water, which in some parts brawled over stones or rippled fleetly over white sand, and in others glided softly over blue pools of considerable depth.  By the side of one of these last, sat a woman of about thirty, neatly dressed as a peasant; she was gazing upon the water into which she occasionally flung flowers and twigs of trees.  I stopped for a moment to ask a question; she, however, neither looked up nor answered, but continued gazing at the water as if lost to consciousness of all beside.  “Who is that woman?” said I to a shepherd, whom I met the moment after.  “She is mad, la pobrecita,” said he; “she lost her child about a month ago in that pool, and she has been mad ever since; they are going to send her to Valladolid, to the Casa de los Locos.  There are many who perish every year in the eddies of the Duero; it is a bad river; vaya usted con la Virgen, Caballero.”  So I rode on through the pinares, or thin scanty pine forests, which skirt the way to Valladolid in this direction.

Valladolid is seated in the midst of an immense valley, or rather hollow which seems to have been scooped by some mighty convulsion out of the plain ground of Castile.  The eminences which appear in the neighbourhood are not properly high grounds, but are rather the sides of this hollow.  They are jagged and precipitous, and exhibit a strange and uncouth appearance.  Volcanic force seems at some distant