The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-02-04

air blows fresh and pure over the vast plains, bringing hints of the nearby
 sea on it's wings, while the fervid sun reminds you that Othello's country is close at hand. The horses go with no driving at all, but obey the voice of
 the coachman, and an occasional gentle
 admonition in the pelt Of @ stone tossed
 with unerring aim from a little heap provided on the box. Perhaps the dri-
 yer is unusually polite because of his
 company, or perhaps he is in the habit
 of addressing his animals in soft-vow-
 elled Spanish-"Go along to God with
 you, lazy creatures!" To the right!
 To the right! A little more to the left
 to avoid that puddle! Ave Marie Prus- sima, go along with you!" Presently a
 serrated line of palms appears on the
 horizon, and soon the strange forest
 has encompassed you. Away up in the
 air. from forty to sixty feet, rise the
 beautiful fans, with their enormous
 pendant punches of dates, the golden fruit hanging from stems so gorgeously
 yellow that description of their color in words cannot give any idea of their ef-
 feet when lighted up by the sun and backed by the deep blue sky. Their va riety of form Is also beautiful. The
 older trees grow perfectly straight, like
 Corinthan columns with splendid cap itals; others bend in picturesque atti-
 tudes; some are buttressed up with lit
 tie stone walls, and beside them younger palms rise in full youthful viz or, thousands upon thousands of them for miles around. The "male" trees only have leaves, and the females"
 bear fruit--for there is distinct sex in 1 date palms. The fruit is somewhat smaller and less highly favored than the African date, but most people pre- fer, them to ranker varieties. At any rate they yield the Elecheans at least eighty or ninety thousand dollars eve ry year-a third of it in leaves for Palm Sunday-used all over Spain-and in stalks to be blessed by the priest and stuck up iil balconies to ward off light ! ming being considered quite as effec- tive as the best rods ever made, You see great many of the male palms all swaddled in bandages, in order to blanch the leaves before cutting them for the approaching Palm Sunday fes-
 
 being gathered by the clever little Thor telanos,' who climb the branchless trunks like cats or Hazards, a rope be- ing passed around the tree and their waists, upon which they rest their whole weight in a horizontal position, lowering their baskets when filled and raising them again by crude sort of pulley. Defective palm trees are sent to the cigarette manufactures of Alicante to serve as wrappers. By the road side, before every cottage door are quantities of dates in baskets, to which nobody pays the smallest attention. The passer-by can eat as many as he likes and stuff his pockets also. but is expected to leave a half-penny or so in payment. To the credit of the Spanish character be it said that the payment is generally left, and nobody disturbs the half-pennies though they accumu- late on the door-sill The Spaniard may be a throat and highway rob- Der in bold, brave way, but he is never sneak-thief.
 Eleche, though the Roman Illica, is completely Moorsh in character.
  with 'the eternal fitness" but a de- cent though humble, posada, where en- tertainment for man and beast is deci- dedly in favor of the latter. It is an old saying, "See Eleehe and stay for ever" The longer you remain the more dlsinelined you are to leave It's eh- chanting Walks-soinetimes through the magnificent groves of date palms, where all is richness and splendor of color; sometimes in the deep, brown ra- vine of the dried-up Vinaiapo river; along the banks of noisy { little stream bordered with cacti, pom egranate bushes and rioting nastur- tiums; and sometlmese out upon the desolate, gravelly plain beyond, where [ the extreme clearness of the atmos- phere makes distant objects appear [ marveously distinct even to the vio- | let tinted mountains on the horizan. From every point of view, Eleche re- | minds you of Jerusalem, with it's flat roofed casas, cfumbling walls and | mosque.
 From Eleche to Murcia the road is a mere track across the plain, so ill-de- fined and strewn with rocks and bold- CTS that you expect the diligencla to overturn at any minute. But nothing serious happens, though the driver hardly touches the lines. Sometimes you reach the brink of an abandoned stone quarry and decide in your own mind that further progress is impossi- ble, or else that it is a case of "Vain world, adieu:" but the coachman shies l stone or two at his horses tails, while them to God and calling lpon the saints and the Virgin Pruis- sima-and down you go somehow in safety, to scramble up again as miracu- ously on the other side. he highway improves as you approach Orihuala- m old cathedral town, where all the girls are perambuating he streets with fresh roses stuck be, lind their ears and where the country 'ound about is so exceedingly fertile hat a well-known proverb says: Lluve
 no Muve, trigo in Oribuala-" or 10 rain corn grows in Orihuala."
 Murcia, though an important city and he capital of its province, is seldom yisited by travellers, because it lies out tide the usual route; and having little commerce, except with the peasantry |, if it's fertile huerta, it retains ancient costumes and customs with more than spanish tenacity Therefore the trav-