The Moor and Cid 



and I was beginning to feel hungry and weak, having been 

 inwardly deranged all the morning. 



About halfway to Moron we got off and sat in a ditch 

 by the wayside under the tall green spikes of the aloe. 

 Here I ate some of my loaf and cheese, but not the oranges, 

 for reasons which I will not explain. On the contrary, I 

 seasoned the simple aqueous contents of my bottle with 

 fifteen drops of laudanum, which, with the concurrence of 

 the " most benevolent of medicos," I ventured to prescribe 

 for myself. 



While I ate, and Harry smoked, my pony observed a 

 great herd of horses feeding in the dehesa at about a quarter 

 of a mile off. He got his feet out of the traboy and galloped 

 away. Harry had bought a new one at Arahal to supply 

 the place of that broken the day before, so that the Cid had 

 to follow the Moor with his feet tied, for the new hopple 

 resisted all his efforts. He, however, managed to go a sur- 

 prising pace, much quicker than Harry could run after him. 

 I, being an invalid, lay still to await the result, and of course 

 expected to be attacked in Harry's absence on the model 

 of our former day's sad experience. We have christened 

 Harry's pony the Cid, and we intend to christen, or rather 

 paganise, mine when we discover the name of the Cid's 

 principal antagonist, for which we are not sufficiently 

 extemporaneous historians. In abeyance, mine is pro- 

 visionally invested with the general title of " the Moor," 

 sometimes Othello, for short. 



After a while, Harry returned with the ponies. He had 

 been helped to catch them by two horse-herds, who were 

 tending the flock of horses. The Moor had been received 

 with kicks and bites and all sorts of indignities by the 

 society with whom he had amiably desired to be better 

 acquainted. The Cid, who was an older hoof, had not 



13^ 



