Introduction 



though the railways have scored deep lines upon the face or 

 the land, they have left the districts untouched by them 

 more conservative than ever in many things. Now that 

 everybody travels by rail from one principal point to 

 another, the habit of road travel has been lost, and the 

 smaller towns of no special interest to tourists are more 

 deserted than before. A few Catalan and French bagmen 

 occasionally find their way to these places out of the beaten 

 track of international travel ; but save for them, the roads 

 are left to muleteers and wayfarers, such as those described 

 in " Don Quixote " and seen by George Cayley and his 

 friend more than fifty years ago. Again, doubtless, in 

 Spain as elsewhere, the popularisation of the motor will in 

 time bring the main diligence roads into use again by 

 cultured travellers. But that, thank Heaven, is not likely 

 to be just yet ; for the highways leave much to be desired 

 from the motorist's point of view, and the posadas in the 

 provinces will take many years to bring up to his ideal of a 

 comfortable stopping-place. 



It may be safely said that if at present any two young 

 men similarly equipped to Cayley and his companion were 

 to start out on a like expedition they might conceivably 

 meet with adventures and discomforts of the same sort, and 

 would assuredly find the places and people but little 

 changed, except in the matter of costume. It is true that 

 they would run smaller risk of attack from bandits, although 

 even that danger in certain districts might be encountered, 

 nor would it be so easy now as it appears to have been fifty 

 years ago to make readers believe that you might kill a free- 

 booter in the neighbourhood of a great Spanish city and escape 

 pursuit or suspicion. Nor could the travellers, without 

 the certainty of being apprehended for lunatics or stoned for 

 buffoons, assume the theatrical get up adopted by the 

 Englishmen in "Las Alforjas." 



10 



