The Smuggler's Companions Interfered, And With Much Difficulty Led
Him Off To A Small Apartment In The Rear Of The House, Where They
Slept, And Kept The Furniture Of Their Mules.
The drunkard then
commenced singing, or rather yelling, the Marseillois hymn; and
after having annoyed every one for nearly
An hour, was persuaded to
mount his horse and depart, accompanied by one of his neighbours.
He was a pig merchant of the vicinity, but had formerly been a
trooper in the army of Napoleon, where, I suppose, like the drunken
coachman of Evora, he had picked up his French and his habits of
intoxication.
From Estremoz to Elvas the distance is six leagues. I started at
nine next morning; the first part of the way lay through an
enclosed country, but we soon emerged upon wild bleak downs, over
which the wind, which still pursued us, howled most mournfully. We
met no one on the route; and the scene was desolate in the extreme;
the heaven was of a dark grey, through which no glimpse of the sun
was to be perceived. Before us, at a great distance, on an
elevated ground, rose a tower - the only object which broke the
monotony of the waste. In about two hours from the time when we
first discovered it, we reached a fountain, at the foot of the hill
on which it stood; the water, which gushed into a long stone
trough, was beautifully clear and transparent, and we stopped here
to water the animals.
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