First View of Madrid 



seen, every mile or so, a party of camineros^ with muskets 

 pitched and implements to mend the way. All, without 

 one exception, have been either eating, drinking, smoking, 

 or sleeping : to-day, however, we actually saw one of them 

 tightening his belt, as if he really was going to work. We 

 wondered whether Dean Swift had ever seen Spain — Laputa 

 has a Spanish sound. Baited at Val de Moro. Soon after 

 leaving this place we topped a long rise, and saw Madrid 

 about eight or nine miles before us. 



It was a better-looking place than we had imagined — a 

 good, compact mass of towers and steeples, and pinnacles 

 crowning the brow of a hill. We forded the Manzanares, 

 which was broad and deepish for us on our little ponies. It 

 was now dusk, and the soldier at the octroi (excise-office) 

 stopped us as suspicious-looking countrymen, likely to be 

 smugglers. 



" Whom have we here ? '* cried he. 



" Caballeros Ingleses en viage^^ I replied glibly ; and it 

 appeared we so little came up to his ideas of English gen- 

 tlemen on their travels, that he preferred to consider it as 

 an excellent joke. 



" Ha, ha, ha ! Tou English gentlemen ! You are contra- 

 handistas from Malaga, more likely ; and I'll be bound 

 you have some excellent bottles in your alforjas ! " Here 

 he began feeling and ferreting in them. " Ha ! the 

 bottom is wet ; there is a broken bottle in them some- 

 where." 



" Caramba ! Senor doganero ; I should have thought you 

 knew the water of Manzanares from the wine of Malaga. 

 We have ridden through the river, and have no contraband 

 drinks about us. It is a verdad catoUca (Catholic truth) 

 that we are English gentlemen, and that the sooner you can 

 satisfy yourself that these are only dirty shirts and^stockings 



286 



