than a first visit; for in the latter, one is op-
pressed by the feeling of the quantity to be seen
and the short time there is to see it in, and so the
intense anxiety and fatigue destroy half one's enjoyment of the objects themselves. That evening
they were to leave the biting east winds of Madrid
for the more genial climate of sunny Malaga; and
so, heaving made sundry very necessary purchases,
including mantillas and chocolate, and having
eaten what turned out to be their last good dinner for a very long time, they started oflf by an
eight o'clock train for Cordova, which was to be
their halting-place midway. On reaching Alcazar,
about one o'clock in the morning, they had to
change trains, as the one in which they were
branched oflf to Valencia; and for two hours they
were kept waiting for the Cordova train. Oh! the
misery of those wayside stations in Spain! One
long low room filled with smokers and passengers
of every class, struggling for chocolate, served in
dirty cups by uncivil waiters, with insufficient seats and scant courtesy: no wonder that the Spaniards consider our waiting-rooms real palaces. You have no alternative in the winter season but to endure this foetid, stifiing atmosphere, and be blinded with smoke, or else to fi'ee:5e and shiver outside, where there are no benches at all, and your only
Page:Impressions of Spain in 1866.djvu/49
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
MADRID.
33