Description of the Road 



talking and laughing, without troubling ourselves about the 

 pace we went, more than an occasional word of banter with 

 the steady old calesero, who sat at the marques's feet, with 

 his legs dangling over the shafts. 



To the left appeared, through the misty mid-day sunshine 

 of the plain, the brown range of the Sierra Morena ; and to 

 the right, in the far distance, arose the blue mountains of 

 Ronda. 



After a while the dehesa changed to olive-groves, and we 

 got into mazy private roads which wound among the trees. 

 At last, after about three hours and a half, we came in sight 

 of a long low mass of white building, with a pinnacle- 

 mounted gateway, through which we passed, amid the 

 greetings of a motley crowd of retainers, into a vast court- 

 yard, around which were the establishments for grinding 

 the olives and storing the oil, besides stables and dwellings 

 for the retainers. 



Here, leaving the calesa^ we went through an iron gate 

 into a patio (court) with a fountain and marble arches and 

 columns. The house was a curious, rambling arrangement 

 of corridors and passages, and galleries hung with quaint 

 old family portraits in wigs and brocade, and likenesses of 

 the kings of Judah, signalised with their respective names 

 in yellow paint. 



Having inspected the house, and lastly reached the 

 dining-room, the basket which had come with us from 

 Seville was unpacked, and out of it came cold fowls, and 

 ham and beef, butter, chocolate, and a paper of tea. As it 

 was three o'clock, we lunched, and ordered dinner at nine, 

 being waited upon by a stout old lady, the wife of the steward. 



Each of us now armed himself with a polished yew club, 

 which appears to be the legitimate companion of predial 

 inspection, and sallied forth. This stick (called porro) is 



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