be too late for the Correo.  It has not yet
come.  Yes; it is just putting to.  I hear the
mule-bells clash and tinkle warningly.  I get
in, huddled back my melons and straw bags
under the seat, and effect leg-alliances with
my three fellow travellers; who, before we
are a good league up the red earth-hills
studded with vines, begin squeezing crimson
threads out of their wine-bags, some of
which go into their mouths; but a
percentage soak in blots into their shirt-fronts,
or spurt up on to the carriage roof, and
descend in vinous rain; inclining me to do
as Lord Bacon used to do in a shower, and
take off my hat to receive the benediction of
heaven.

But what was the Correo like, in which
I made a journey from Granada to Loja to look
for Don Quixote?  It was like a covered market-
cart projected on the basis and body of a small
stage-coach.  Four sufferers inside, knee to
knee,—no room to stir a leg, to remove the
exquisite torture of the os coccygis,—and
three persons, including the driver, seated on
the front seat, which formed the front wall
of our interior,—the three persons being
specially adapted to jam out all air.  Inside,
to sleep was impossible, not to sleep was
impossible.  Outside, the heat was as of a
fire-wind.  Stir, breathe, sleep, read, or move,
was impossible.  No one of my fellow travellers
could be the Don, I was sure, for I read the
names on their luggage.

I can imagine how that real self-denying
gentleman the Don, who never tried to give
pain to any one, would have struggled to
appear cheerful, and have coiled up his long legs,
anxious to incommode nobody, but longing to
be once more on Rosinante; how he would
have beguiled the time by twiddling his
moustachios, and telling stories of Don
Belianis of Greece, and Tristan the Lover
of Yseult; railing, with generous ardour,
at the treachery of Sir Galaaor, after he
escaped from Fez with the emir's daugher.
But my companions were three poor
ignoble Spaniards, in dirty jackets; blue of
chin, mean of face, all day bagpiping their
wine-bags, and cutting up cold quails with
immense dagger-knives, which they took from
their dirty red sashes, smelling of garlic.
Then they sliced up a melon, gnawed
at the section, and flung the rind out
of the window at barelegged boys, who
ran after us for pence.  They rolled perpetual
cigarettes, subsiding into restless jogging
sleeps.  When we changed horses, at the
house where the strings of hot red peppers
hung up to dry against the white-washed
wall, we got out, so that we might have, if
only a minute's change of position.  I remember
it was so blistering and screeching hot, that
I ran for shelter to the narrow slant bar of
shade cast by a post, though it only took in
one of my legs, and left the other with the
sensation of being dipped into boiling water.
At last driven from that refuge, I tore into
the posada stable, where the mules' halters
were tied up to pegs made of ham bones,
and where the muleteers were snoring on the
stones, wrapped in their cloaks.  Yet not even
here did any one answer to my description of
Don Quixote.

Nor at the venta that I rode into at
noon of the next day, followed by my guide;
where the paving-stones were red-hot, and
the ground dazzling and blinding with the
sun.  The two rooms of this small inn opened
right and left from the court-yard, whose
gate I entered; the one a kitchen, the other
a store-room.  I called for dinner.  They
had everything but beef, mutton, veal, and
fresh pork.  An idiot girl, who watched me
as if I was a new sort of cannibal, pointed
up at a ham hanging from the rafter, and
began to cluck and cackle like a hen.  I
accepted the omen, and called for ham and
eggs.  A crowd of idle muleteers and vine-
dressers gaped and pointed at me.  To appear
at ease, I took off my gloves, smoothed
out the fingers, brushed my hat with my
arm, looked down at my boots, beating
my legs with my riding-whip.  All these
performances were received with approval.
The children grinned, the men smiled at
each other, as much as to say, "He is very
like one of nosotros (of us) after all."

The excitement I caused in that little inn
was intense.  Everything had to be fetched.
Everything that I wanted was malapropos,
un-Spanish, and out of season, out of time,
and out of place.  Water to wash,—a dozen
red jars, knotted with cord, were sent on the
heads of girls, half a mile off, to the street
fountain, where the water was almost boiling.
The eggs were to be sought for in the
stable-mangers and hay-scented lofts.  The
ham was to be cut and cooked.  As for the
melon, I knew where that came from, for the
landlord, putting on his hat with the air of a
resolute and determined traveller, went out
for it, and returned, after ten minutes, greasily
triumphant, with a large speckled one, like
a bloated aldermanic lizard, in a net.  With
what homely and ridiculous affectation
of delighted hospitality did he, the crafty
Manchegan, instantly cut me a slice, to stay
my appetite!  As for the idiot, she was chucklingly
busy with the eggs; and the hard-featured
mother—who every moment pointed
with a fork at the fryingpan, and then turned
round to me and grinned—was fussily blowing
up, with a plaited straw firescreen, a
smoulder of charcoal that gradually kindled
up and grew to a lively burning crimson,
from a flickering wavy yellow.  At last came
the dishing-up; when, at a central rickety
deal table, I sat down to a basin of poached
eggs floating like golden rafts on a sea of
black grease, in which were stranded square
dark chips, like so many Madras
catamarans, with all hands lost.  Then followed
grapes; golden-skinned; filled with
unadulterated wine of precious powers: then