An Yrun Thing 



are wretched bags of bones, with sore backs, like many of 

 their brethren we have seen on the road. 



They have been our companions and our daily care now 

 for three or four months ; we have had much trouble and 

 many differences of opinion with them since our first 

 struggles in the dehesa^ near Seville ; they are not par- 

 ticularly amiable or engaging in their dispositions ; for the 

 Moor is a stupid, hot-headed fool, and the Cid a cunning, 

 sulky, cowardly beast, and yet we feel as if a close domestic 

 tie was about to be snapped ; and the unconsciousness of 

 the poor wretches, as we hear them chumping their last 

 feed of corn administered by our hands, makes the impending 

 separation more melancholy. 



But sell them we must, for we have no other means of 

 raising money to get to Bayonne. I have come in with two 

 reals and a half (about sevenpence sterling), as the total 

 residue of the funds with which I left Madrid ; so that my 

 getting to Yrun at all may be said to have been a near-run 

 thing. 



Since Madrid we have travelled loo leagues, or about 270 

 miles, for the modern league is not three miles, as the ancient 

 one was. In some of the by-roads of Andalusia the nominal 

 league was often nearer four miles than three, but on 

 the high roads the leagues are always short. 



392 



