Page:Impressions of Spain in 1866.djvu/53

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ON THE ROAD TO CORDOVA.
37


and then a sullen despair and a final making ip one's mind that, after all, it can't last for ever, are the phases through which the unhappy travellers pass during these agreeable diligence journeys. It was some little time before our party could get sufficiently reconciled to their misery to enjoy the scenery. But when they could look about them^ they found themselves passing through a beautifiil gorge, and up a zig-zag road, like the lower spurs of an Alpine pass, over the Sierra Morena. Then began the descent, during which some of the ladies held their breath, expecting to be dashed over the parapet at each sharp turn in the road: the pace of the mules was never relaxed, and the unwieldy top-heavy mass oscillated over the precipice below in a decidedly unpleasant manner. Then they came into a fertile region of olives and aloes, and so on by divers villages and through roads which the late rains had made almost impassable, and in passing over which every bone of their bodies seemed dislocated in their springless vehicle, till, at two o'clock in the afternoon, they reached the station, where, to their intense relief, they again came upon a rail- road. Hastily swallowing some doubtftil chocolate, they established themselves once more comfort- ably in the railway carriage ; but after being in