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    A Traveller Accommodated with a Robber. ...

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    A Traveller , Accommodated With A Robber

    one by one they follow , frequently the hind mule ' s collar fastened to the girth of the preceding one . Thus you will see strings of thirty or forty , ranging either along the narrow defiles , or in relief on a mountain ridge , with the clear sky .

    And now the sun began to pour forth his rays with vigour ; and Francisco , my guide , as if inspired by what was sufficient to kill your unhabitual traveller , no longer was silent . He endeavoured to entertain me in

    spite of my ignorance of the language , and succeeded to a certain extent by chusing the interesting subjects of eating and drinking , and helping himself out to their exposition by lively pantomimic gesture . Pointing to Santa Fe , he made me understand that there we should have

    breakfast . " El jamon , y heuvos , y poco vino , senoralli ( ham and eggs , and wine , Sir , there );" and ever and anon he exclaimed against the " mal camin _, " or bad roads . The roads were indeed

    very deep , for no care is taken in removing" the water that has lodged . In parts of this country there seems to have been no change since the times of Don Quixote .

    About mid-day we reached Santa Fe , a poor little place , but remarkable as having been built by Ferdinand and Isabella , when they beseiged Granada , then held by the Moors .

    We stopped at the door of a small house , and entering , 1 found a woman in the kitchen

    A Traveller , Accommodated With A Robber

    so busily employed in seiving flour over a trough , and with her song , that she paid no attention to us . She held a seive in each hand , and moved them rapidly to and fro on some smooth

    sticks placed across the trough , filling them occasionally from another . Her reply to the application of Francisco to fry some of the ham we brought was the most concise , and her song ceased scarce for a moment . I cut the ham as Francisco was

    relieving the horses , and , with the assistance of an old crone , made other movements towards its cookery . A boy that had been sent for eggs returned with the sad

    news that no eggs were to be had , so we must be content with the ham alone . Content , therefore , we were ( " by force , " as they say in the South ) , and I had now time to admire the

    figure and bearing of the woman at the flour trough . She was a majestic , powerful creature , with a handkerchief , well covered with the dust of the

    flour , on her head , the corners of which fell down behind her ; she had white-stockinged legs _* sandalled ; and she put forth her feet with the dignity and air of an amazon . In a little

    while she had finished her work , and having whisked a chair and dusted down a diminutive table , placed a clean white cloth thereon , she shook her own dress free of the dust , and stood looking curiously at me . Her husband soon came

    A Traveller Accommodated With A Robber. ...

    A Traveller Accommodated with a Robber . 59

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1837, page 59, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_01071837/page/57/