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Grand Hotel de la Paix
Madrid
June 9th, 1903.

My dear Colonel:-

The long interval between receipt of mail at Capri and at Madrid causes me to only now acknowledge the re-ceipt of your good letters of May 2nd, 4th, 13th and 18th.

For all of the interesting news; personal, business and otherwise, I am greatly obliged. I am also thankful for your kind attention to the Matsuki remittances, the sale of bonds, etc., etc. 

Well, Colonel I would like to tell you much about my impressions of Spain, but I hardly feel many of them sufficiently sure to write clearly about them. Further-more, a country abounding in so much that seems fine and so much that suggests decay needs time and study to under-stand. And then too, natural scenery and other forms of nature which for years has been praised by writers, seems to me very ordinary and commonplace while the same features of the country in other sections, which the authors have degraded, I have found according to my standard, very beau-tiful --- for instance Granada and its environs seem to me to have been a decoy at which many shots of flattery have been fired by poets and descriptive writers. I con-cede that there is much beauty there, but no more than can be found at La Granga and other places, even Madrid which has been most disrespectfully described, is in may ways, in its location and environs, comparable with Granada.

Seville too, has been held up as the center of gay spanish life! If what we saw there is gaiety then let my fate be sorrow. And Spanish pride has been sung about for centuries, but instead of pride, I would say the predominat-ing characteristic of the people is ignorance. The masses seem certainly to be not only ignorant and dull but also stupid and lazy. The railways which have been so seriously criticised, are so far as we have seen them, not so bad after all. There is some excellent engineering, fine road bed and track, and comfortable equipment, (english standard) is far better than I expected. The passenger cars excepting much needed toilet accommodations are quite good. The station buildings are ample, convenient and clean. The passenger trains are few in number and generally speaking, very slow in speed, but why? Simply because of the extremely light passenger