160 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



suspended over smoky fires of green wood. Cavalry, 

 infantry, and cooks were laughing, joking, singing, 

 and talking with the gaiety characteristic of the 

 Spanish soldier, and which scarcely ever abandons 

 him even in the most difficult and unfavourable 

 circumstances. 



The horses had been cleaned and returned to their 

 stables ; the muskets burnished till they shone again ; 

 the rations cooked and eaten. It was past noon, and 

 the rays of an October sun, which in Castile is often 

 hotter than a July sun in our more temperate climate, 

 had driven the soldiery to seek shade and coolness 

 where best it might be found. Some were sharing 

 the litter of their horses, others were stretched under 

 trees and hedges in the outskirts of the town, whilst 

 the most weary or the least difficult to please lay 

 wrapped in their cloaks on either side of the street. 

 A deep silence had succeeded to the previous noise. 

 It was the hour of the siesta. 



Two o'clock had chimed from the church tower of 

 Ayllon, and had been repeated by the clocks of the 

 neighbouring convents and villages, when a battalion 

 of infantry entered the principal street, and advanced 

 at a rapid pace towards the open square in the centre 

 of the town, where it halted and formed up. A body 



kettle and resume their place in the circle. " El dos," No. 2, 

 is next called, and performs the same manoeuvre. After No. 4, 

 the turn of No. 1 comes again, and so on till the pot is emptied 

 And the bellies of the soldiers more or less filled. 



