a label that read “Venezia.”  “Is that,” he said, “Venedig?” with a little gasp.  “Yes; Venedig,” I responded, “where the streets are water.”  Slowly he removed his hat.  “Ach, Venedig!” he sighed; and then he stooped down, and, with the uttermost solemnity, he kissed the label....  And then I understood the vast impulsion of that wanderlust which has pushed so many, many Germans southward, to overrun that golden city that is wedded to the sea.  I have forgotten the name of that junction, as I said before; but I have never been so happy in Munich as in this lonely station where there is no food.

Speaking of food reminds me of Bobadilla, in southern Spain.  Bobadilla sounds as if it ought to be the name of a medieval town, with ghosts of gaunt imaginative knights riding forth to tilt with windmills; but there is no town at all at Bobadilla,—­merely two railway restaurants set on either side of several intersecting tracks.  For some mysterious reason, passengers from the four quarters of the compass—­that is to say, from Cordoba, Granada, Algeciras, or Sevilla—­are required to alight here, and eat, and change their trains.  I remember Bobadilla as the place where you spend your counterfeit money.  Many of the current coins of southern Spain are made of silver; and the rest are made of lead.  For leaden five-peseta pieces there is a local name, “Sevillan dollars,” which ascribes their coinage to the crafty artisans of the capital of Andalucia.  These pieces, which are plentiful, are just as good as silver dollars—­when you can persuade anyone to take them.  The currency of any coinage, except gold, depends entirely upon the faith of those who pass and take it and has no reference to its intrinsic value; and, in southern Spain, the leaden dollars serve as counters for just as many commercial transactions as the dollars made of silver.  The only difference is that they are commonly accepted only after protest.  In every Spanish shop, a slab of marble is built into the counter, and on this slab all proffered coins are slapped before they are accepted by the merchant.  The traveler soon learns to fling his change upon the pavement; and many merry arguments ensue regarding the timbre of their ring.  I remember how once, in the wondrous town of Ronda, when a beggar had imposed himself upon me as a guide and led me into a church where High Mass was being chanted, I gave him a peseta to get rid of him, and at once he flung it upon the pavement of the church, and chased it, listening, across the nave.  Thereafter, he protested loudly that the piece was lead, and disrupted the intoning of the priests.  “Very well,” said I, “it is, in any case, a gift; if you don’t want it, I will take it back”:  and he accepted it with bows and smiles, and allowed the weary priests to continue their intonings.  But Bobadilla is the one place in southern Spain where money is never jingled upon marble.  There is no time between trains to quibble over minor matters; and a “Sevillan