PREFACE.
Since the publication of the first Edition of this Guide, time and events have effected changes little anticipated by its author. The general introduction of Railways throughout Spain, the improvement of roads and circulation of steamers along the coasts, have revolutionized the mode of travelling. In consequence of this, the whole arrangement of the Routes of the Handbook required to be altered. Moreover, inns and conveyances have multiplied and improved, many of the difficulties and inconveniences of travelling have been diminished or removed, the time and the expense required have been reduced. Above all, security in travelling has been ensured by the establishment all over Spain of a police force based on the model of our own and that of the Irish constabulary, and thoroughly efficient in the performance of its duties.
Under such circumstances, a thorough revision of the Handbook could be effected only on the spot. This has been the course pursued in the present and preceding Editions, and the results will be apparent in every page of the present Edition.
In this volume have been included some of the most interesting passages from Ford’s ‘Gatherings in Spain,’ one of the happiest productions of their lamented author; as well as many extracts from the Second Part of the Handbook, now out of print. Several of the descriptions of the Battles of the English in the Peninsula were written on the spot by a military officer.
An elaborate Travelling Map of Spain, from the latest surveys, has been prepared expressly for this Edition, and many Plans of cities, &c., have been added.
To those of our countrymen and women who have exhausted the cities,
