The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-28 00:00:00

_
oigneu; " TilE PROCURATOR-0 ENEIt 41.

MALTA.
VALEITA, Sort 26.
Iler Majesty's ships the Lord Warden and the
Enterprise (ironelads) have arrived hero from
Augusta Bay, and are provisioning for speeitil
is rvicc. It is supposed they are to proceed to
Sraiu for the protection of Bntisli intereit..

THE MALTA AND ALEXANDRIA CABLE.

VALETTA. /pr. 27.

The Chiltern and Scanderia, attended by her
Metjesty's 'ship Endymion and Newport, left
lust night to submerge the new Malta and Alex-
andria cable. Fine weather prevails. Her
Ilujesty's ships Enterprise and Lord Warden
have been recalled from the Sicilian widens by
Vice-Admiral Lord Clarence Paget, and the Euter-
prise has already left for this port.

The bright sky, clear atmosphere; and 000 l
breeze seem all to have contributed to make
Madrid particularly lively and gay during the
whole day. The streets have been crowded with
hosts of idlers, pleasure seekers, and men of busi-
ness ; cabs have been rattling over the rough
pavement, and several handsome equipages have
mingled with them; the soldiers have been march-
ing hither and thither certainly, but there has
been nothing to indicate that we were living in a
city in a state of siege and on the brink of a revo-
lution. Indeed, I met to-day two English gen-
tlemen who arrived yesterday from the north of
!;pain, and knew nothing whatever about the
political state of affairs till I informed them of
it. However, all strangers are flocking out of
Spain, and 2,000 first-class tickets were sold for
France in the course of yesterday and to-day.
The whole of Andalucia has " pronounced," as it is
called—that is, risen against the present govern-
ment. Order is, I believe, maintained throughout
the districts which have risen, and in no case has
there been any bloodshed. Several towns in the
north have also risen. Aragon and Catalonia are
still kept down by military force, but if
they once go over Madrid must speedily fol-
low their example. Meanwhile the Queen
has teen dissuaded from returning to the
capital, and remains at San Sebastian. I
walked this afternoon through the Prado, which
bore anything but a revolutionary aspect. It is a
very pleasant and extremely well-kept promenaie.
At the furthest end of it the annual fair of
Madrid is now being held. Here, on each side
of a broad road planted with trees, extend
a long line of booths for the sale of every ima-
ginable article, while here and there penny
theatres, peep-shows, swings and merry-go-
rounds, intervene between them. I never saw
agreater amount of rubbish exposed for sale than
at this fair—bud pictures, shabby crockery, second-
hand clothes, play-things, and an enormous
quantity of old books seemed to fill the majority
of these stalls. The ground before souse of the
stalls was literally strewn with books, which also
lay inside piled up in large heaps. Some of the
tooths contained huge quantities of water melons,
oranges, lemons, grapes, and tomatoes, while the
margins of the road opposite to them were lined
with a series of itinerant vendors, principally of
walnuts, toys, worthless trinkets, and cooling
drinks. These men were extremely picturesque
in their bright red and yellow jackets, gaily
coloured handkerchiefs tied round their heads,
white stockings, red or purple sashes, and straw
sandals. But there is much diversity in their
costume, as they come from different provinces of
the kingdom ; their cries are shrill, and not very
melodious. The fair is indeed a terribly noisy
place, and crowded with people of all classes on
this fine afternoon. We could scarcely make our
way through the throng, the soldiers freely
mingled with the crowd, joining in their garnets,
and looking on at the different shows.

At the end of this broad avenue is the celebrated
church of the Atocha, to which the Queen goes
every Saturday when she is in Madrid, and always
visits on the day she leaves, as well as on that on
which she returns to her capital. It is as poor and
unsightly a building as nearly all the Madrid
churches arc, and never did a city possess such a
set of mean, ugly churches as Madrid. Its
great attraction, however, is a black image
of the Virgin Mary, said to be miraculous,
and which her Catholic Majesty specially
patronises; to it she attributes her preserva-
tion from the knife of an assiassin in 18.52,
and the hideous image is covered with gor-
geous silks, studded with pricoless jewels,
which are all the Queen's gifts. It is said (as all
these black images and pictures are) to have been
calved by St. Luke, and is placed high up above
the altar, indeed almost out of sight, and sur-
rounded by a perfect blaze of wax lights. The
church is filled with various other very
ugly figures of wood and was, besides
several hideous life-size crucifixes, on which, in-
stead of the cloth round the loins which we find
in other countries, our Lord wears a long petti-
coat extending from the waist to the foot, gene-
rally made of silk, and with a gold fringe. This
strange custom is peculiarly Spanish. The quietest,
the most delightful, and the best nianugod institu-
tion in Madrid is El Museo. It is situated in the
and contains one of the richest
and u,oYt beautiful collections of paintings of
%cry school and period in the world. Na-
fm ally it is particularly rich in the works of
Spanish masters ; those of Ribera, Volasquet,
and Murillo are marvellous pictures—perfect
,/,fs-diruerr of art. Vi4asquez's portraits, espe-
cially his equestrian pictures of the royal family
of Lis day, are really wonderful--the horses seem
to le hut ing out of the ciurvas. Resides thew
Spanish wUTkN the gallery possesses some of
the finish grins of Italian art, among them Raphaers