We reached that junction soon after and I set off westward along the main line. The landscape was rich and rolling, broad stretches of golden grain alternating with close-shaven plains seething in the sun. Giant cacti again bordered the way. Once, in the forenoon, I came upon a refreshing forest, but shadows were rare along the route. The line was even more traveled than that below Honda. Field-laborers passed often, while sear-brown peasant women, on dwarf donkeys jogged by in almost continual procession on their way to or from market.
Not once during all my tramps on the railways of Spain had a train passed of which the engineer did not give me greeting. Sometimes it was merely the short, crisp "Vaya!" more often the complete expression "Vaya V. con Dios!" not infrequently accompanied by a few words of good cheer. Here on the main line I had occasion to test still further the politeness of the man at the throttle. I had rolled a cigarette only to find that I had burned my last match. At that moment the Madrid-bound express swung out of a shallow cutting in the hills ahead. I caught the eye of the engineer and held up the cigarette in sign of distress. He saw and understood, and with a kindly smile and a "Vaya!" as he passed, dropped two matches at my very feet.
It was not far beyond that I caught my first glimpse of the Guadalquivir. Shades of the Mississippi! The conquering Moor had the audacity to name this sluggish, dull-brown stream the "Wad-al-Gkebir," the "Great River!" Yet, after all, things are great or small merely by comparison. To a people accustomed only to such trickles of water as had thus far crossed my path in the peninsula no doubt this over-grown brook, bursting suddenly on their desert eyes, had seemed worthy the appellation. But many streams wandering by behind the barn of an American farmer and furnishing the old swimming-hole are far greater than the Guadalquivir.
I crossed it toward three of the afternoon by an ancient stone bridge of many arches that seemed fitted to its work as a giant would be in embroidering doilies. Beyond lay Andújar, a hard-baked, crumbling town of long ago, swirling with sand; famous through all Spain for its porous clay jars. In every street sounded the soft slap of the potter; I peeped into a score of cobble-paved courts where the newly baked jarras were heaped high or were being wound with straw for shipment.
A long search failed to disclose a casa de comidas in all the town. The open market overflowed with fruit, however, stocked with which I strolled back across the river to await the midnight train. It was packed with all the tribes of Spain, in every sleeping attitude. Not until we had passed Córdoba at the break of day did I find space to sit down and drowse for an hour before we rumbled into Seville.
I had exhibited my dust-swathed person in at least half a dozen hotels and fled at announcement of their charges, when I drifted into the narrow calle Rosario and entered the "Fonda de las Quatro Naciones." There ensued a scene which was often to be repeated during the summer. The landlord greeted me in the orange-scented patio, noted my foreign accent, and jumped instantly to the conclusion, as Spaniards will, that I knew no Castilian, in spite of the fact that I was even then addressing him with unhesitating glibness. Motioning to me to be seated, he raced away into the depths of the fonda calling for "Pasquale." That youth soon appeared, in tuxedo and dazzling expanse of shirt-front, extolling as he came the uncounted virtues of his house, in a flowing, unblushing imitation of French. Among those things that I had not come to Spain to hear was Spanish mutilation of the Gaelic tongue. For a long minute I gazed at the speaker with every possible evidence of astonishment. Then turning to the landlord I inquired in most solemn Castilian.
"Está loco, señor? Is he insane that he jabbers such a jargon?"
"Cómo, señor!" gasped Pasquale in his own tongue. "You are not then a Frenchman?"
"Frenchman, indeed!" I retorted. "Yo, señor, soy americano."
"Señor!" cried the landlord, bowing profoundly, "I ask your pardon on bended knee. In your Castilian was that which led me to believe it was not your native tongue. Now, of course, I note that it has merely the little pequeñísimos peculiarities that make so charming the pronunciation of our people across the ocean."