Here I am in this venerable university, completing my education, and endeavouring to make amends for the sad waste of time during the years mis-spent at Oxford in earning the honour of a M.A. This peaceful habitation of the Muses is disturbed by the piping of the fife and the beating of the “soul-stirring” drum. The empty colleges are filled with soldiers, who are inscribing on the walls carrajo, and the usual words by which that class of people show their proficiency in the art of writing.
Everything very quiet in Portugal; in Merida there may be 400 or 500 men; in Placencia as many cuirassiers; in Ciudad Rodrigo a company of artillery and about 1200 men. Here there are artillery from Seville, some cavalry, and altogether about 4000 to 4500 men. This army on the frontier, including Badajoz, I should state as under 10,000. They are very well appointed in all respects, and seem fine troops—full, however, of quintas [balloted men] and young lads.
I have seen much of General Sarsfield, which is more than anybody else has. He seems to think that there is no chance of anything taking place in Portugal, except in case of a general war.
This is a charming old town. I have been over the field of battle. The identical guide who was with Lord Wellington lives still in Arapiles.[27] Would you believe it? not a single Spaniard, though they have been here two months, has ever been over to see the scene of battle. They, I suppose, know full well how very little they had to do with it.
I have been wandering over the mountains to the mines of Rio Tinto, to Zafra and Merida, and thence across the uninhabited plain of Estremadura to Alcantara, a magnificent Roman bridge in a most picturesque situation, reminding me much of Toledo. Thence through Coria to Placencia, and to the convent of Yuste, where Charles V. died. The monks received me with great hospitality, lodged me in the imperial quarters, and gave me a bed in the room in which Charles died, and I did not see his ghost.
Thence through Capara (a beautiful Roman arch) to Abadia, a ruined palace of the great Duke of Alva. Thence over the mountains through the romantic valley of Jurdes to the celebrated convent of Las Batuecas, a mountain scene of the grandest description. Thence to the ruined town of Ciudad Rodrigo, and so on to Salamanca; where I have been living much with the Prior, a great ally of the Duke of Wellington, and who furnished him with the most important intelligence during the war. I am now going to Benavente, thence to Santiago, Oviedo, Leon, and so to Madrid, viá Burgos and Valladolid. Please God, I hope to arrive in the Corte early in July.
Pray be so kind as to put aside the Galignanis since May, as these are most interesting times, and I am longing to read the debates. If I can be of any service, manda V. E. con toda franqueza a su criado; and write either to Lugo, Oviedo, or Leon, in case you wish anything done in the mountains or a prayer said for your sins at Compostella.
I have good accounts of my wife at Seville, who is broiling while I am shivering under the blasts of Castille, attended with cold and rain—worse weather than the most inclement June in England. Sad work for an artist, as the wind blows one’s paper to rags and the rain wets it through, to say nothing of the chance of being shot as a spy or laid in the Red Sea as the ghost of Mr. Boyd.
Madrid, Thursday [July 13, 1832].
I arrived here this morning, having left Bilbao on Tuesday, which is not bad work this warm weather. I am very sorry not to meet you here, to talk over my pilgrimage and travels, which have been rather interesting. I have been absent from my spouse and children so long that my marital and paternal feelings are getting impatient for Seville, where I hope to arrive next week, leaving this Corte on Tuesday by the Malle de Poste. This is an excellent and most rapid mode of travelling, as we came from Vitoria nearly a gallop all the way. I hope this autumn, if Dom Pedro allows you, that you will come down and look at our pretty Sevillanas.