Men as a rule seem scarcely so numerous as magpies, and one may ride for miles at a stretch without encountering a soul; but those whom you do meet are admirably in rapport with their surroundings; and though their pursuits may be prosaic their appearance would illustrate a romance. This solitary horseman, for instance, is probably a most commonplace personage in reality. We shall sit next to him at comida in an hour or two, and discover that he is an eminently innocuous bagman. But out here in the midst of the wilderness, clad in his broad-brimmed hat and his ample black cloak which muffles him up to the eyes, he might pass as a living embodiment of Roque Guinart himself, and we rather plume ourselves on our resolution in venturing to keep to the road. The Spaniard as a rule wraps himself up amazingly when he goes a-travelling; and the Scotch shepherd sallying out to visit his flock in a December snowstorm is not more jealously{158} plaided than the Castilian carrier trudging along beside his pack mules, with his purple shadow blotting the dusty roadway at his feet. By way of contrast one may occasionally see the small children scampering about outside the cabin doors without so much as a rag of any description whatever—an infinitely more enviable costume.

The greater number of the vehicles are ramshackle tilt-waggons, drawn by a goodly array of mules, five or seven in a string. These have a horrid habit of pulling en échelon, so that each beast has a clear view of all the road ahead of him, and can make up his mind exactly what he means to shy at. This formation occupies the whole width of the roadway, and the driver (being a driver) is of course asleep; consequently, if you have a rock wall on one side and an everlasting vertical precipice on the other, you had better be careful how you pass. Indeed, it is well to give them a wide berth in any case, for even the immortal Bayard himself, “without fear and without reproach,” professed himself anxious about his shins in the neighbourhood of a Spanish mule. They are harnessed with delightful inconsequence in all sorts of gay tags and fringes, and scraps of old caparisons of yellow Cordovan leather; while all deficiencies are eked{159} out with string. This requires great quantities of string. The waggons which they draw are equally patchworky, with their cargoes bulging out on all sides in an imminently precarious fashion. In the wine districts they generally carry an “extra” in the shape of a huge tun slung under the axle between the lofty wheels.

It is worthy of remark that a Spanish “gee-upper”[24] is commonly unable to think of any worse name for a mule than its own. “Arré! Mula!!” he cries, and collapses impotently. What more can he call it? It is a mule. To do him justice, however, he seldom resorts to blows to reinforce his vocabulary; and the cruelty so often inveighed against in southern countries is not very noticeable in northern Spain. The beasts are gaunt, bony, and ill-kempt, but herein they are no worse off than their drivers: they are too often worked when galled or foundered; yet this is but negative heedlessness, and positive misusage is rare.

The temper of the beasts is uncertain. The ox and the ass are phlegmatic, but the horse and mule (which have no understanding) have decidedly fidgetty nerves. The mules are frequently gigantic animals, as high-standing and big-boned as an{160} English dray-horse, though much less heavy and muscular. Mixed teams are frequently requisitioned in the mountain districts. One sample that we met had a horse for leader, then two mules tandem, a pair of oxen, and a mule in the shafts; another had a mule for shafter, with two more mules outside the shafts, a fourth ahead, and three yoke of oxen to lead the way. It is extremely fashionable to finish off the string with a diminutive donkey (generally the smaller the better) tacked on as a sort of afterthought at the head of the whole cavalcade. He looks as though meant for a tassel, but is really played as a pace-maker; for he is always the fastest walker and the most enthusiastic worker in the team.

There was a real “little Benjamin” of jackasses that we met on the road near Segóvia. Two men were coming into the town in charge of a bull; and by way of getting the hulk steered with as little personal attention as might be, it had struck them to harness this trifle to the monster’s spreading horns. Had the bull really resented the arrangement it would have cost him but a turn of the head to heave the whole equipage over the parapet among the tops of the poplars below. Fortunately, however, he was not actively annoyed{161}—only rather grumpy and puzzled. Every few steps he would stop, shaking his head and bellowing; while his little pilot gathered himself together, drove in his toes, and flung himself into the collar with the exalted enthusiasm that does not reck of odds. He fairly squirmed with glee as his charge condescended to move a step or two forward, and evidently considered that every yard of progress was exclusively attributable to himself.