He screamed lustily at his mules, addressing each
personally by its name. "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.
It was nearly sunset when we arrived at the summit of the pass. We
halted to ask for a glass of water at the hut of a gray-haired woman on
the mountain-top. It was given and received as always in this pious
country, in the name of God. As we descended, the mules seemed to have
gained new vigor from the prospect of an easy stretch of facilis
descensus, and the zagal employed what was left of his voice in
provoking them to speed by insulting remarks upon their lineage. The
quick twilight fell as we entered a vast forest of pines that clothed
the mountain-side. The enormous trees looked in the dim evening light
like the forms of the Anakim, maimed with lightning but still defying
heaven. Years of battle with the mountain winds had twisted them into
every conceivable shape of writhing and distorted deformity. I never saw
trees that so nearly conveyed the idea of being the visible prison of
tortured dryads. Their trunks, white and glistening with oozing resin,
added to the ghostly impression they created in the uncertain and
failing light.
We reached the valley and rattled by a sleepy village, where we were
greeted by a chorus of outraged curs whose beauty-sleep we had
disturbed, and then began the slow ascent of the hill where St.
Ildefonso stands.
