180 A SPRING TOUR IN PORTUGAL. 



next morning, soon after daybreak, found ourselves wind- 

 ing through pleasant valleys, well amongst the mountains, 

 now ascending at sharp gradients, now threading our way 

 through tunnels, or running along ledges of rock, with 

 frightful precipices below, as we crossed the Pyrenees. 

 Through all this district we were now gliding smoothly in 

 a large and roomy carriage, and at a rate of nearly twenty 

 miles an hour ; w^hereas, in our previous expedition into 

 these parts, we toiled painfully and long in the most 

 clumsy of Spanish diligences, and amidst the yells of our 

 driver and conductor, the shouts of our postillion, and the 

 thrashing of our fourteen mules by one whose business it 

 was to run by the side, and belabour those unfortunate 

 beasts in turn, we crawled along at scarcely four miles an 

 hour, whilst our heavy machine, which held twenty people, 

 and was reckoned, when loaded, to w^eigh from four to five 

 tons, would occasionally subside into some deeper rut or 

 hole than usual, with a crash and a jolt that threatened to 

 dislocate every bone in our body ; and at the end of such 

 a journey of eight-and-forty hours we felt stiff and sore in 

 every joint. The contrast was certainly in favour of the 

 present system, and those who traverse the length and 

 breadth of Spain in these days, as may be easily accom- 

 plished now by means of the w^ell-connected system of 

 railways, can have little conception what real hard work 

 was involved in a journey through Spain but a very few 

 years back, and what powers of endurance and physical 

 strength were needed to travel by diligence those long and 

 tedious journeys from the frontier of P'rance to Madrid, 

 and on to Cordova and Seville ; or from the sea-coast of 

 Malaga by Granada to Valencia and Barcelona on the 

 eastern side. 



When we reached the French frontier, and had passed 

 our buggage through the custom-house, we had to transfer 

 ourselves and goods to another train ; and as we marvelled 



