"Andaluza, arre! Thou of Arragon, go! Beware the
scourge, Manchega!" and every animal acknowledged the special attention
by shaking its ears and bells and whisking its shaven tail, as the
diligence rolled furiously over the dull drab plain.
For three hours the iron lungs of the muleteer knew no rest or pause.
Several times in the journey we stopped at a post-station to change our
cattle, but the same brazen throat sufficed for all the threatening and
encouragement that kept them at the top of their speed. Before we
arrived at our journey's end, however, he was hoarse as a raven, and
kept one hand pressed to his jaw to reinforce the exhausted muscles of
speech.
When the wide and dusty plain was passed, we began by a slow and winding
ascent the passage of the Guadarrama. The road is an excellent one, and
although so seldom used, - a few months only in the year, - it is kept in
the most perfect repair. It is exclusively a summer road, being in the
winter impassable with snow. It affords at every turn the most charming
compositions of mountain and wooded valley. At intervals we passed a
mounted guardia civil, who sat as motionless in his saddle as an
equestrian statue, and saluted as the coaches rattled by. And once or
twice in a quiet nook by the roadside we came upon the lonely cross that
marked the spot where a man had been murdered.
