On Travel and Other Thinps 21 



o 



while we yet stood disconsolate, he returned with a cackling 

 cockerel in his arms. " Stew him quick before he crows," he 

 adjured the girl, and turned to unload the ponies. 



What an aoje a cockerel takes to cook ! It was midnigrht ere 

 he smoked on the board and, hunger satisfied, we could turn in. 

 In an upper den were two alcoves with beds, or rather stone 

 ledges, ordinarily used by the family, and which were assigned to 

 us, the luckless No. 3 by lot having to make shift (in preference 

 to sleeping on a filthy floor) with three cranky tables of varying 

 heights, and whose united lengths proved a foot too short at 

 either end ! 



Oh, the joy of the morning's dawn and delicious freshness of 

 the mountain air, as we turned out at five o'clock for yet another 

 ten-league spell to our next destination. Two nights later we 

 slept in the gilded luxury of Madrid ! But how w^e abused our 

 previous neglect in not having brought a camp-outfit. 



The above, however, presents the gloomier side of the picture, 

 and there is a reverse, even in posadas. AVe cannot better 

 describe the latter side than in our own words from Wild 

 Spain : — 



A Night at a Posada (Andalucia) 



The wayfarer has been travelling all day across the scrub-clad wastes, 

 fragrant with rosemary and wild thyme, without perhaps seeing a human 

 being beyond a stray shepherd or a band of nomad gypsies encamped 

 amidst the green pahnettos. Towards night he reaches some small village 

 where he seeks the rude 'posada. He sees his horse provided with a 

 good feed of barley and as much broken straw as he can eat. He is 

 himself regaled with one dish — probably the oUa or a gidso (stew) 

 of kid, either of them, as a rule, of a rich red-brick hue, from the colour 

 of the red pepper or capsicum in the cJiorizo or sausage, which is an 

 important (and potent) component of most Spanish dishes. The steaming 

 olla will presently be set on a table before the large wood-fire, and 

 with the best of crisp white bread and wine, the traveller enjoys his 

 meal in company with any other guest that may have arrived at the 

 time — be he mideteer or hidalgo. What a fund of information may be 

 picked up during that promiscuous supper ! There will be the housewife, 

 the barber, and the padre of the village, perhaps a goatherd come down 

 from the mountains, a muleteer, and a charcoal-burner or two, each 

 ready to tell his own tale, or to enter into friendly discussion with the 

 " Ingles." Then, as you light your hreva, a note or two struck on the 

 guitar falls on ears predisposed to be pleased. 



