336 DRIVING. 



dialects. It may be that the drivers encouraged their animals 

 to work in words of the sweetest Caucasian endearment, 

 and though it did not sound much like it, I only trust that it 

 may have been so. I have never, however, travelled in any 

 country where a profuse profanity did not appear to be the 

 most natural and humane means of stimulating beasts of 

 traction to exertion ; indeed, I think that in Spain an artist 

 is specially trained to run beside the diligences and offer 

 observations to the mules. In any case, the long procession 

 was at last set in motion and we plunged at once into the 

 snow. 



From the beginning the gradient was steep, but for a 

 time the progress was steady if slow. All went well for an 

 hour or two, but as we ascended difficulties seemed gradually 

 to increase. The track became so narrow that the tarantass 

 no longer fitted it, owing most likely to very few vehicles of its 

 size having passed the mountain at that early season of the 

 year. The consequence was, with one runner in the track, and 

 the other in the unbeaten snow, the upsetting angle was so 

 often on the point of being obtained, that w r e were very 

 politely requested to get out and walk, which we did without 

 much pressing, as, had an upset occurred, it was difficult to 

 say, and quite impossible to see, what the end of it might 

 have been. The cold became very great, but before starting 

 we had been provided by the authorities with good rough fur 

 pelisses, fur boots and big Circassian sheep-skin caps, so while 

 sitting still we were comfortable enough, although the costume 

 was hardly adapted for walking in, had our rate of progress 

 been more rapid. Still up, and always up, we plodded along 

 in the wake of our unstable equipage. At the dangerous 

 places detachments of men floundered along knee-deep at 

 either side, and when an upset seemed all but inevitable by 

 the sheer weight and strength of their bodies restored the 

 tottering ark to something approaching equilibrium. Up, and 

 always up, till the lower country had long been lost to view, and 

 nothing but the spotless snow was to be seen, look where one 



