The books about Spain are legion, and the best of it is that they are also infinitely delightful, so that, while improving our minds, we may do it with thorough enjoyment to ourselves. Here, too, the foreigner has been most bountiful, and has endowed Spanish literature with jewels of research and beauty. To begin only with those of America, we have Washington Irving’s Conquest of Grenada, and the Alhambra, Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip the Second of Spain, and the Conquest of Mexico and Peru. Amicis, also, has a charming book on Spain and the Spaniards, and there are one or two, not very new, but exceedingly interesting, by the Rev. Hugh James Rose, one of them called Untrodden Spain, and a newer one by J. A. O’Shea, called Romantic Spain. If we do not read Spanish, we may enjoy Longfellow’s beautiful translations from the Spanish poets, and if we do know it, we may read the great novelist, Fernan Caballero. Perhaps it will surprise you to hear that Spain possesses several very able female novelists, besides the lady I have mentioned, and another one, Emilia Bazan Pardo. In the story of the nations, we have The Moors in Spain, by Stanley Lane Poole, which should also be read, and you will find Murray’s Handbook for Spain, a perfect and voluminous guide. There are several others as well. Spain has fewer foreigners than any other European country resident in her borders, and she has the smallest population in proportion to her size. Travelling in Spain will be of the greatest use to you in cultivating the virtue of patience, and you can, at the same time, take lessons in politeness. If you do not know anything of Italian, you will find Spanish much pleasanter to learn, for the one language seems to act as an extinguisher to the other, in my mind, and I hear others say the same thing, for they are so much alike, and yet quite different. A smattering of Spanish, however, will be very useful to you, as English is not so well known as in other countries. Murray’s Handbook was written by Richard Ford, and he has also written Gatherings from Spain, and he is the standard authority on everything connected with its study. There is a book by a Miss Thomas, called A Scamper through Spain and Tangier, which would be useful to those who wish to make a cheap tour in Spain. She visited the chief Spanish cities. Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature is the standard work on the subject.
Portugal is not one of the very popular tourist lounges, and the ordinary person has a hazy idea of it as connected with port wine, and the earthquake at Lisbon, and has probably heard of Inez di Castro, Vasco de Gama, and Prince Henry the navigator; and the Jubilee of 1887 made us all acquainted with the fact that the Royal Family of Portugal are near relations of our own, as on that occasion the Crown Prince and Princess were seen very frequently about London. Perhaps many of my readers may know also that Camoëus is the great Portuguese poet, who was the author of the Lusiad, a poem which has received such recognition in England that it has been translated four times, the last time by Adamson, who wrote a biography of the poet, and the late Lord Strangford translated some of his minor poems. The only really good book on general Portuguese history is that in “The Story of the Nations Series” by H. M. Stephens. There is also a book by W. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, which is a popular work and well compiled. Round the Calendar in Portugal is a book by Oswald Crawford, which I have enjoyed very much, but I think that there is plenty of room for another or even two or three more about Portugal, which perhaps some of my girl-readers would like to undertake.
Amongst Mrs. Pennell’s delightful books, the whole of which are worth reading, is one dealing with Hungary and Roumania, which is called Gipsyland; and Mrs. Elliot has a Diary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople. There are one or two lives of Carmen Sylva, the Queen of Roumania.
Egypt has had plenty of explorers, and I think you will enjoy Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs, Mariette Bey’s writings, and Miss Edwards’ delightful books. Then there is Lane’s Modern Egyptians, and as a really delightful thing you had better read Miss Gates’ book, the Chronicles of the Cid. Stanley Lane Poole’s book on Cairo, and Alfred Milner’s England in Egypt, are quite modern works, and Charles Warner has written a very interesting one too. For the Soudan, Major Wingate’s book is a good one, and you ought to be charmed with all those written by Mr. and Mrs. Bent. There are many books on Palestine, but none more useful than Thomson’s Land and the Book, for those who wish to travel through the Holy Land with the Bible in their hands.
And now I think I may leave my task of guiding my readers into such reading of many books as will give them enjoyment in their travels in foreign lands. I have not done more than speak of some of the many works which have interested me, for I find others that have been perused, but which do not seem important nor useful enough to be mentioned. In many Continental cities there are fairly good libraries, from which you can procure books dealing with the city in which you are staying; and if you are a rapid reader, you can do much in the way of skimming-over the ground, and a few photographs will remind you of the objects you most desire to recall.
THE COURTSHIP OF CATHERINE WEST.
CHAPTER III.
n after-life, when Catherine tried to review the events of that strange summer, although every detail of her stay in Switzerland stood out in startling distinctness, she could never remember anything about the journey home. It seemed to pass in a dream, and she saw, as in a vision, the flitting crowds at the railway stations, the swarms of strange, unknown faces, the gleams of sunlight on field and stream as the train rushed by them, and at last the sea and the white cliffs of England again. Ten days had changed her from an eager, impulsive girl to a mature woman, self-reliant, not only in intention, but in fact. The well-known approach to her old rooms convinced her of the reality of things. “And now,” she thought, “for the old life, with its ordinary cares and business. Well, it has to be endured.”