Here We Entered A Gallegan Cabin, Or Choza, For The Purpose Of
Refreshing The Animal And Ourselves.
The quadruped ate some maize,
whilst we two bipeds regaled ourselves on some broa and
aguardiente, which a woman whom we found in the hut placed before
us.
I walked out for a few minutes to observe the aspect of the
country, and on my return found my guide fast asleep on the bench
where I had left him. He sat bolt upright, his back supported
against the wall, and his legs pendulous, within three inches of
the ground, being too short to reach it. I remained gazing upon
him for at least five minutes, whilst he enjoyed slumbers seemingly
as quiet and profound as those of death itself. His face brought
powerfully to my mind some of those uncouth visages of saints and
abbots which are occasionally seen in the niches of the walls of
ruined convents. There was not the slightest gleam of vitality in
his countenance, which for colour and rigidity might have been of
stone, and which was as rude and battered as one of the stone heads
at Icolmkill, which have braved the winds of twelve hundred years.
I continued gazing on his face till I became almost alarmed,
concluding that life might have departed from its harassed and
fatigued tenement. On my shaking him rather roughly by the
shoulder he slowly awoke, opening his eyes with a stare and then
closing them again. For a few moments he was evidently unconscious
of where he was.
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