CHAPTER XXIV 



Madrid, April i6. 

 Here we are, safely arrived in Madrid. Our way from 

 Villarta hither has not been fruitful in adventures, and the 

 scenery could not easily have been more dreary and deso- 

 late. The only variation of the vast and wearisome plain 

 consists of occasional broad, flat valleys, which look as if 

 the surface, undermined by some volcanic action below, had 

 given way, and gone down like the trap-door of a stage, 

 leaving slovenly, crumbling, precipitous edges, some four or 

 five hundred feet deep on either side. 



Often the towns are hidden in these great gaps, so that 

 there is no sign of any human habitation within the blank 

 horizon. 



We entered this sort of country at Puerto Lapiche, where 

 we breakfasted after leaving Villarta. Here, on either side 

 of the hills we were deserting, stood a crowd of Don Quixote's 

 windmills. Here he turned off the camino real to do penance 

 at the Fe'ha pohre. The landlord knew nothing about this last 

 place, but had a vague idea that Don Quixote had been in 

 the place, and qui'z.a (perhaps) the history had been written 

 here. 



I don't know whether it was Don Quixote's windmills 

 which gave a romantic turn to our discourse, but it ran 

 upon the strange and startling occurrences which do, from 

 time to time, chequer the usually prosy pages of real life. 



279 



