Tembleque and Ocana 



engine ? I believe that in different ways, varying by pro- 

 gression, the same passions and temptations come with the 

 same force to generation after generation, from the apple 

 and twig of Adam to the sceptre and ball of Napoleon. Man, 

 with all his boasted advancement, gets no further. He is 

 working in a spacious house of correction, with science for 

 his treadmill-wheel. Or he is picking the arts, instead of 

 oakum, with a vague yearning for some dimly-conceived 

 ideal of beauty. Alas, if we come out of our house of cor- 

 rection worse than we went in ! " 



" Yes ; but, my dear sir, you must allow that man is in a 

 better state since the spread of Christianity." 



" Certainly ; but that is the free gift of God, and not any 

 merit of man's own. I argue that the only real advantage 

 which man gets from his boasted march of intellect is 

 physical convenience and intellectual activity — a condition, 

 not a result. I deny any strictly essential good arising directly 

 from the results of his labour. They will all probably perish 

 with the world, when a higher range of truth opens to our 

 eyes, and be resolved into a mere supplementary nothing to 

 the original nothingness out of which the world was made." 



We rode down into Tembleque — a cold-looking, miserable 

 place ; supped on mutton-chops (evidently off some tough 

 old ram), fried potatoes, and salad. There was a large 

 party supping in the kitchen, and after a little conversation, 

 one of the company asked us if we were Andalusians. An 

 older man answered for us, " The dress is the dress of the 

 Andaluzes, but the tongue not." 



Next day we passed Ocana. Our ponies were weak on 

 their legs, and cut their fetlocks a good deal. I filed off the 

 heads of some obnoxious nails, but it did little good. I then 

 tied up the wounded fetlock in a silk handkerchief, so that the 

 Moor could do it no more harm for the present ; but he was 



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