Railway Engineers 



seems to me, are not Andaluzes, but English ; and it is 

 regular (probable) that they are engineers of the railway 

 which is to be constructed from Madrid to Paris." 



We confessed we were Englishmen, and the company took 

 the rest of his proposition as a self-evident corollary ; for 

 they began inquiring eagerly whether the country was prac- 

 ticable, and how long it would be before Jthe railway was 

 constructed. We, who had never heard that such a thing 

 was contemplated, nevertheless thought it a pity to disap- 

 point them of the official information they anticipated ; so 

 we assured them that the country from Madrid, as far as we 

 had gone, was eminently suited to the construction of a line ; 

 that the main difficulty we foresaw was in crossing the 

 Pyrenees ; but that to English engineers everything was 

 possible ; for, if they could find no valley to go through, 

 they thought nothing of cutting a hole through several 

 leagues of the heart of a mountain : nathless the ventero 

 need not make himself uneasy about the loss of his traffic on 

 the road as yet, for there was no probability that the rail- 

 way would be in working order before at least seven or eight 

 years. This announcement seemed satisfactory to all parties. 

 The conversation changed ; and apropos of something which 

 I forget, the lean old man asserted very solemnly that no 

 animal would eat Christian flesh ; and that this was an 

 eminent proof of the supremacy of man over the rest of 

 creation. 



" But, my dear sir, don't you remember the case of ' that 

 prophet ' whom the lion ate, and the donkey stood in the 

 way ? It is written in the Old Testament, so there can be 

 no doubt of it." 



" If it be written in the Old Testament, it becomes 

 evident that that prophet was no Christian, but a Jew." 



"But, if lions eat Hebrews, how much more will they eat 



