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constantly to be seen large two-wheel vehicles, of greater carrying capacity 

 than our ordinary drays, drawn by a string of four mules in Indian file ; or 

 not uncommonly three mules with a donkey in the lead. My earlier days 

 had made me tolerably familiar with the various tasks it is customary to im- 

 pose upon this humble beast of burden ; never before, however, had I seen 

 it in this novel position of comparative ease and dignity well out of reach of 

 the punishing lash. 



We have not taken kindly to mules in Australia ; indeed, it is but rarely 

 that one meets with them. And yet wherever one goes in the warmer regions 

 of the globe one finds that for general purposes mules have been given the 

 preference over horses. As draught animals if not as hacks they have many 

 points in their favor : under adverse conditions of diet they are hardier than 

 horses, they eat less, are less difficult in their tastes, less subject to disease 

 and limb unsoundness, and they are generally longer lived. Against mules, 

 on the other hand, it may be said that at times they are less tractable and 

 staunch than the average horse, and in the popular mind, like all half-breeds, 

 they are supposed to inherit all the defects of their parents and but few of 

 their good points. Let us recognise, however, that the chief difficulty is the 

 fact that the Anglo-Saxon does not love the mule, and unless in the future 

 our immigrant increase be partly drawn from the South of Europe the mule, 

 in spite of his numerous good qualities, is no more likely to become common 

 in Australia than is the camel. 



With all its squalor, its gipsies, its beggars, Granada is a wonderful city 

 to visit. The interest attaching to it is mainly historical, for it is passing 

 rich in the relics of glorious by-gone days. The Alhambra, that fairy 

 Moorish palace overhanging the city and facing the snow-clad Sierra Nevada ; 

 the stately Alameda ; the art treasures of the beautiful cathedral one might 

 have spent months of aesthetic enjoyment in the neighborhood but for the 

 fact that time flies, and there was yet much to be done. And thus on the 

 evening of the 28th of October, after a stay all too brief, we set out on the 

 return journey to Madrid. 



TOLEDO. 



Whilst in Madrid for the second time we paid a hasty visit to Toledo, a 

 curious old Moorish town, still celebrated as of yore for its steel and damascene 

 work. The city and its general surroundings are picturesque in the extreme, 

 albeit the stern grandeur of its monumental buildings can hardly be appre- 

 ciated from its narrow, tortuous streets. Toledo, which must have been 

 almost impregnable in days of old, dominates the plain from the summit of 

 rough-hewn granite rocks. Almost completely encircled by the steep cliffs 

 of the Tagus, it presents a most threatening, gloomy appearance from the 

 left banks of the river. Here, by the bridge of San Martin, I run into the 

 only flock of Merinos I was able to come across in Spain. It was raining at 

 the time, and the flock had halted in the neighborhood of the bridge under 



