A NIGHT AT A POSADA. 19 



A Night at a Posada. 



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 palmettos. 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 olla, or a guiso (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 chorizo or sausage, which is 

 an important (and potent) component of most Spanish 

 dishes. The steaming olla will presently be set on a low 

 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 muleteer or hidalgo. What a fund of infor- 

 mation 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 moun- 

 tains, a muleteer, and a charcoal-burner or two, each ready 

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

 the Ingles. Then, as you light your breva, a note or two 

 struck on the guitar fall on ears predisposed to be pleased. 



How well one knows those first few opening notes ! No 

 occasion to ask that it may go on : it will all come in time, 

 and one knows there is a merry evening in prospect. One 

 by one the villagers drop in, and an ever-widening circle 

 is formed around the open hearth ; rows of children collect, 

 even the dogs draw around to look on. The player and 

 the company gradually warm up till couplet after couplet of 

 pathetic "malaguenas" follow in quick succession. These 

 songs are generally topical, and almost always extempore : 

 and as most Spaniards can — or rather are anxious to — 

 sing, one enjoys many verses that are very prettily as well 

 as wittily conceived. 



