Ingenious and diverting letters of a lady's travels into Spain; describing the devotions, nunneries, humour, customs, laws, militia, trade, diet, and recreations of that people / [Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville Aulnoy].

Madame d'Aulnoy

Date:: 1717

Credit: Ingenious and diverting letters of a lady's travels into Spain; describing the devotions, nunneries, humour, customs, laws, militia, trade, diet, and recreations of that people / [Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville Aulnoy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$that the great Streets are fet with fine Trees, which are water- ed with Streams running by them. From Mount St. Adrian hither, it is feven Leagues. In fine, I am juif fetting out, and muft end this long Letter ; it is late, and I have fpoke to you {o much of what Ihave feen, that I have faid nothing of my Affections to you: Believe me, however, dear Coufin, that] am, and ever fhall be, From Vittoria, : Yours. - Feb, 24, 16-73, | | | TE Ped: BR UTE | M Letters are fo long, that it is hard to believe when [ LYS finifh them, that have any thing more to tell you ; yet, my dear Coufin, I never clofe any, but there remains fill fufficient for another: Were Tonly to {peak to you of my Friendfhip, this would be an inexhauftible Subject; you may make fome Judgment of it from the Pleafure I find in obeying your Commands. You are defirous to know all the Particulars of my Voyage, I will therefore go on to relate them: = I fer out very late from Vifforia, by reafon of my Stay at the Governefs’s, whom I before mentioned ; and we went to lie at Miranda : ‘The Country is very pleafant as far as Auigny 5 we came afterwards by a difficult Way to the Banks of the River Urrola, whofe Noife is the greater, in that ’tis full of Rocks, on which the Water dafhes, beats up, and falls down, and forms feveral Cafcades in feveral Places. We continn’d to af- cend the high Mountains of the Pyrenees, where we ran a thou- find feveral Dangets : We faw the ancient Ruins of an old Caftle, where Ghofts and Spirits have their Apartments, as well as in that of Quebara 5 it is near Garga/on ; and being to ftop there to fhow my Paffport, becaufe here certain Cuftoms are paid to the King, I learnt from the Alcade of the Borough, who drew near my Litter to talk with me, that it isthe com- mon Report of the Country, That there were formerly a King and a Queen here, who had fo fine and beautiful a Woman to their Daughter, that fhe was rather taken for a Goddefs than a mortal Creature : She was call’d Mira ; and it is from her: _ Name came the Mira of the Spaniards, which is to fay, Look; you ; for as foon as ever fhe appear’d, all the People attentively ' beheld her, and cry’d out, Mra, Mira 3 and here’s the Etymo-: logy of a Word drawn far enough. ‘This Princefs has never been: Brae A: à MES Lu 8. {ER$