A Dead Flat 



quart) of them for about three half-pence, and kept crack- 

 ing and eating them all the way to Mojados. 



The country round about all seems a sunken plain, 

 whose flat-topped hills, with crumbling sandy sides, look as 

 if by some accident they had remained of the original level. 



We crossed one of these flat tops to get to Mojados, and 

 thence overlooking the broad arid valley, fancied we saw 

 Valladolid about twelve miles off, but could not be certain. 

 At Mojados we dined in the Parador of the diligence, for 

 we had now struck upon a camino real. After dinner there 

 was a guitar funcion^ in which a professional gentleman, the 

 mozo de la cuadra^ and Harry, were all strumming more or 

 less together. 



Valladolid lies on a dead flat, and is an ugly city, in a 

 frightful country, by no means worth riding through or 

 riding to. Even the sunset-lights, by which we saw it 

 first, failed to gild it with any colour of enthusiasm. 



Observing a grassy lane that diverged from the road 

 within a mile or so of the city, and as we were in no hurry 

 to enter Valladolid, we turned into it, and lying down on a 

 flowery bank, lit our cigars, and prepared to enjoy the 



sunset. 



We had lightened the ponies of their alforjas^ and freed 

 them of their bridles, so that they could pick the fresh grass 

 at ease. They seemed to like it so much that we began to 

 pity their case for having been kept so long on dry barley. 

 They had not had any green meat all the way from 

 Granada, and all the time they stood in Madrid. 



Two men with great green bundles of lucerne on their 

 heads came by in the most apposite manner. They at once 

 offered to sell, and we bought the largest of their bundles, 

 thinking what a treat this lush herbage would be to the dry 

 vitals of our beasts. We strewed it on the ground, and 



