On Travel and Other Things 21 
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 age a cockerel takes to cook! It was midnight 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 we 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. We cannot better 
describe the latter side than in our own words from Wald 
— Spain :— 
A Nicur 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 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 ol/a 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 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 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 breva, a note or two struck on the 
guitar falls on ears predisposed to be pleased. 
