Order of March 



When we had got some little way beyond my bathing- 

 place of the morning, and a bend in the ravine had shut out 

 the last of the towering heights of Cuenca, our young ladies 

 thought fit to dissolve the tie which bound us, and we were 

 permitted to direct and manage our several animals as best 

 we could by admonitory flicks over the head and ears with 

 our halter-ends. Thus we threaded our way, riding two and 

 two (for our fair guides had also mounted) along the narrow 

 path, winding in and out among the huge masses of fallen 

 rocks between the echoing precipice and the murmuring river. 



I rode by the side of my original conductress. Some 

 introductory conversation ensued. Her name was Facunda ; 

 the other was not her sister,^but her cousin, — she was called 

 Casta. They did not live in the same house, — Casta lived 

 over the way. Casta's house was a posada — not a regular 

 posada^ but guests could be received. She was not married, 

 nor would confess a novio (sweetheart). She had not yet 

 been told her eyes were beautiful, nor was altogether pre- 

 pared to believe it now. 



We overtook other villagers, and our cavalcade soon 

 amounted to about forty animals — horses, mules, and asses, 

 — mostly mounted by young women and little girls. There 

 were, however, two old women, a man, and two boys. The 

 party reached these final dimensions when, about a league 

 from Cuenca, the glen widened out into a fair green valley. 

 Here the driving of those beasts which were not mounted 

 caused some diversion, and some of the young ladies fell off 

 now and then in the pursuit of pervicacious donkeys who 

 diverged into the green barley. 



It was a merry party, and we rode promiscuously among 

 them, saying all the fine things we could make intelligible — 

 and, indeed, more ; for their language was a rough country 

 dialect, and they could not keep up with our florid classical 



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