JOUKXKV IIO^fH BY LAXI). 1G9 



versing considerably more than three sides of a square, and 

 journey ino^ over 720 nniles, instead of 150. 



The detour seemed so enormous, and the proposal so 

 preposterous, that for a long time we could not bring our- 

 selves to entertain the idea at all. But when we began to 

 study the mnp, and to scrutinise the details, and when we 

 found that it required six days' hard riding to reach 

 Zamora, and that the roughest roadside huts were the only 

 inns where we could procure food and f-helter, we were 

 reluctantly compelled to abandon our scheme for a short 

 cut homewards, and adopt the regular roundabout railway 

 route via Badajoz, Ciudad Keale, and Madrid. 



But this land journey through Portugal, Spain, and 

 France to England, was a formidable business to contem- 

 plate ; for no less than 1,800 miles of railway intervened 

 between Oporto and our own homes in Wiltshire. How- 

 ever, we screwed up our courage to the task before us, 

 allowed the greater part of a fortnight for the purpose, 

 and divided the journey into four unequal portions, se- 

 lecting those places for rest which we most desired to see. 



The first instalment of our journey was by far the most 

 fatiguing, inasmuch as we resolved to push on for Madrid 

 without a halt, and this involved at least thirty-two hours' 

 incessant travelling by express, which in reality was ex- 

 tended to forty hours : of itself no small undertaking, in 

 a railway which, for smoothness, easiness, and general com- 

 fort, must not be compared by the untrayelled Englishman 

 with the Grreat Western or Great Northern at home. At 

 the same time I have no desire to criticise too fastidiously 

 the working of any line in remote districts of Europe, for 

 I know, by experience in former expeditions, how thankful 

 we have often been to reach some little-frequented terminus 

 at last ; and how glad we have been to exchange for the 

 rudest of carriages, the roughest of lines, and the most 

 dilatory of trains, the appalling jolting of a Spanish dili- 



