In the course of my walk, I learned a curious fact, illustrating strongly the mixture of pride and generosity which is often found in the Spanish character. The Corporation being desirous of conducting an aqueduct and a road to Bilbao from a mountain about a league distant, applied to the proprietor (a grandee of Spain) to purchase the land through which these were to be carried. He refused to sell it; but said, that if the Corporation would petition him for a grant of the land, he would make them a present of it: they however wanted no favour, and would not condescend to this; but supposing that the proprietor would be prevailed upon to sell, they commenced, and at length nearly finished the work. The grandee, offended at this insolence, applied to the king for an order to demolish the work, and obtained it; but just in time to prevent this, the Corporation petitioned the grandee, and the order was not only rescinded, but the grant of the land was completed. The water conveyed in this aqueduct forms a reservoir at the entrance of the town for a useful and rather a novel purpose: by opening a sluice, seven of the lowest streets in the town are inundated; this is done every week during the summer heats, and is doubtless very useful in carrying away impurities. I walked through one of the lowest of the streets an hour before, and an hour after the purification; and the difference in smell, freshness, and coolness, was most striking.
Walking either in the streets, or in the neighbourhood of Bilbao, the convents and monasteries are very conspicuous: they are almost all immense piles of building, of little architectural beauty, and are at once distinguished by the strong gratings that cover their windows. In the town there are four monasteries--the Franciscans, the Capuchins, the Augustins, and the Carmelites: the two former of these subsist on charity, which is liberally bestowed, and they in their turn give charity to others. Every day, a great number of poor are fed after the Franciscan friars have dined, and as they are a hundred and ten in number, the refuse of their dinner must be considerable. I visited the Franciscan convent accompanied by an English lady, and although I found the utmost politeness from the Superior, he was deaf to all my entreaties to permit the lady to enter the sacristy, to see a picture said to be by Raphael. This convent was partly destroyed by the French, and it was under its gateway that several of those military executions took place, which so disgraced the conduct of the French during their occupation of the province of Biscay. In the Carmelite convent, there are only five friars, who want for nothing that money can purchase; they are extremely rich, and possess a charming property not far from Bilbao, called “_el Desierto_;” but which might with greater propriety be called “_el Paradaiso_.” Besides these monasteries within the town, there are two at a short distance from it--the Burcena convent of Mercenarios, and the Friars of San Mames, both of the Franciscan order.