The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-13
BARCELONA VIA PYRBNEES.
Il LITTLE RUN INTO FRENCH TER
RETORY.
PecnllaritIes % Travel IN snnln.

I
and far outside the usual routes OF
travel. Plenty of Americans visit Bar
celona every summer, but they always
approach it by steamship up the Medi
terranean from Malaga or Cadiz, or by
crossing over from French territory
via Nice, Toulon and Monaco How
ever, if you would learn the real Spair
you must go outside the beaten paths
and prepare yourself to rough 1t. You
must be content with coarse fare, hard
beds, glassless windows and jolting We
hicles. You must learn to wait with
| patience as you never waited before;
and above ALL you must put Anglican
| pride in your pocket and treat every
| Spaniard from beggar to cabillero, as
| friend and equal If you can take
along an unbiased mind, temporarily
| freed from American .conceit, you will
find much to admire in Spain besides
| the scenery in her Astounding treasures
of art, history and legendary lore, in
| the kindly, generous hospitality of her
people and their unfailing courtesy,
But you must take the Spaniard as you
find him-not as Westerners, imbued
ought to be. His standard of religion,
morality, manners and duty, and of
the amenities of life that are due from
| one human being to another, however
wide apart in rank and hitherto unmet,
is different to ours; and it must be con-
fessed, in some respects is superior
Spain will never become Americanized
nor does she wish to be; therefore it is
well for foreigners to heed the good old
rule, while in Turkey, do as the Tur-
keys
leisurely jaunt through the an
Gent kingdom of Aragon and Catalo-
mia, within sight of the snow-capped
Pyrenees, is the experience of life
time of travel. Stern and bare for the
most part, with hardly tree worth
mentioning, nor grass, nor shrubs,
there is no single feature of striking
natural beauty to be met-except at
rare intervals where mountain spurs,
running down into the desert form an
interim of smiling valley, which is as
one great garden enclosed within rocky
walls. On the interminable uninhabi-
table, dusty plains the silence is al
most CHASTITY, for there are no singing
birds, no rowing beasts, scarcely even
any insects Yet the soul of an artist
will rejoice in the long, gray lines of
landscape, in the unbroken expanse of
dark and desolate sierra, while every
crevice in the distant hills is distinctly
visible in the transparent atmosphere
and shodaws of the clouds fall blue
upon the pale yellow of the tawny des-
ert. Picturesque effects are never
wanting-in frequent shrines along the
dusty road, surrounded by peasant
worshippers; groups of cattle at way
side wells, or standing out asst en-
bossed against the pale distances; long
trains of mules, with their jingling
bells and gaudy caparisoning, and their
drivers in opera bouffe
costumes. This is the character of al
most all the country now traversed by
the principal railways of Spain, which
was, until recently, to be toiled through
only in diligencia or on mule-back-
Quixote fashion. Spain is now so
threaded by roads of steel that nearly
everything of interest may be reached
in a parlor-car but, oh! how the Span
iards hate and abuse those railways,
though they use them! Certainly they
make them DO slow as ever they can
and bring their speed down as nearly
as possible to that Of the old mule-traf-
fic. Time is of no consequence in
Spain, where it has been standing still
so many centuries, and it Is a common |
saying, when train crawls along at a
snaiPs pace stopping every few miles |
FOR no apparent reason, cone can
place as in another"
But Just when the American traveller |
begins to think he has had quite
enough of it, and to wonder why he |
aver came to this heaven-forsaken re-
zion, he reaches one of the grand old |
titles which seems to have enjoyed a
fiesta of several hundred years and to
rave hardly walked up from it. Then
low he pities his fellow beings who
rave never seen Spain-all his dissat-
sfaction at once forgotten in the de-
light of cool walks, shaded by orange
rees, palms and sycamores, along the
,anks of a river; great open squares,
or bull-fights and religious fiestas:
lowery plazas with central fountains,
where bands play every evening while
hidalgoes and Senoritas
make furtive love by the light of the
noon; dark narrow, winding streets,
med with houses of every age ((except
nodern), form and hue; labyrinths of
)uildings-palaces, novels, converts
nd churches, all jumbled together and
hacking of medieval times: market
Flaces set precisely as for the opera
tage and gorgeous in movement and
olor; quaint cemeteries where the
quick" are as silent as the dead: and
ominating all, the vast gothic cathe-
raj, with its airy spires and massive
overs and fine sculptured portals-its
rches and capitals of varied tracery,
eep vaults and forest of pillars-its
liars lighted by thousands of tapers 7
ept burning century after century by
ucceeding generations, which live their
tile day and then nestle to sleep in
lie shadow of the walls
Just such a city is Corona, near the
Mediterranean coast and close under
le Pyrenees the dividing line between
rance and Spain Coming by rail
ON the westward, you arrive in the
light and walk up town from the sta
on. guided by the friendly lantern of
policeman You will probably put c
p' at the Fonda Espana-a house in '
resting enough in itself to pay for the q
ng Journey 1t stands near the cathe q