CHAPTER XXIX 



Segovia, May 9. 



On our way to London we determined to take the 

 Escorial. Leaving Madrid, therefore, by the first gate we 

 could find (that at the end of the Calle de Alcala, Madrid's 

 Piccadilly), we turned to the left and skirted the city walls, 

 till we reached the pleasant avenues which line the margin 

 of Manzanares. 



Passing under a lofty triumphal arch, we bade farewell to 

 the precincts of La Corte, and crossed the river by a bridge 

 adorned with a few broken-nosed stone statues. Three or 

 four hours' ride across a bare, bleak, undulating plain carried 

 us out of sight of Madrid, which, being a city set on a hill, 

 takes some little hiding, and looks well in the distance. 



Turning the ridge of a low, dark range of hills, the huge 

 grey masses and lofty spires of the Escorial appeared at the 

 foot of its snow-sprinkled mountains on the other side of 

 a broad, flat, wooded valley. From its great size it seemed 

 nearer than it was, and the night fell before we reached the 

 small town which has grown up in its vicinity. 



The Fonda of Callisto Burgilios is a comfortable house, 

 and there were stewed pigeons in the olla. We supped in 

 the kitchen. Don Callisto, our host, judging, I suppose from 

 our soiled and seedy arriero costume, that we were hawkers 

 of some sort, asked us what we had to sell in the alforjas. 



We disabused him of his error, telling him our usual 



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