Sometimes We Met
Soldiers Possibly Looking Out For Smugglers But, Let Us Hope, Not
Molesting Them; And Once We Met A Brace Of The All-Respected Civil
Guards, Marching Shoulder To Shoulder, With Their Cloaks Swinging Free
And Their Carbines On Their Arms, Severe, Serene, Silent.
Now and then a
mounted wayfarer came toward us looking like a landed proprietor in his
own equipment and that of his steed, and there were peasant women
solidly perched on donkeys, and draped in long black cloaks and hooded
in white kerchiefs.
IV
The landscape softened again, with tilled fields and gardened spaces
around the cottages, and now we had Tarifa always in sight, a stretch of
white walls beside the blue sea with an effect of vicinity which it was
very long in realizing. We had meant when we reached the town at last to
choose which _fonda_ we should stop at for our luncheon, but our driver
chose the Fonda de Villanueva outside the town wall, and I do not
believe we could have chosen better if he had let us. He really put us
down across the way at the _venta_ where he was going to bait his
horses; and in what might well have seemed the custody of a little
policeman with a sword at his side, we were conducted to the _fonda_ and
shown up into the very neat icy cold parlor where a young girl with a
yellow flower in her hair received us. We were chill and stiff from our
drive and we hoped for something warmer from the dining-room, which we
perceived must face southward, and must be full of sun.
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