The Posada in Segovia, I found remarkably bad; and the posadero seemed resolved to give at least a fictitious value to his articles, by the high price which he set upon them. As I was to leave Segovia at the early hour of four, I called for la cuenta before going to bed; and to my astonishment, three dollars were demanded for my stewed rabbit, and a room so full of mosquitos that I spent half the night in planning warfare, and the other in executing slaughter. I told him no one would travel in his country, if all the innkeepers charged travellers as he did,—such charges would ruin any body. And now the secret of his exorbitant demand came out. “Oh, but,” said he, “poor travellers don’t ride upon the king’s horses, escorted by the king’s servants;” and so my royal bearer, and his royal attendant, cost me two dollars. I paid my money, and consoled myself with thinking that it was probably the last time I might bear a resemblance to majesty.
At the appointed hour I took my place in the gallero, smarting with mosquito bites, and glad to rest from the work of destruction; and after a drive along a road which I already knew, I found myself in my apartment in the Calle de la Madelina a little after dusk.
CHAPTER XI.
TOLEDO.
Journey from Madrid; Proofs of the backwardness of Spain; Appearance of the Country; Spanish Mule-driving; a Venta; First View of Toledo; Toledo Recreations and Society; Remains of Former Grandeur, and Proofs of Present Decay; Picturesque Views; the Tagus; Intricacy of Toledo; Bigotry and Priestcraft; Reasons for the Prevalence of Religious Bigotry in Toledo; Proofs of Bigotry; Aspect of the Population; the Cathedral and its Riches; Scene in the Cathedral; the Alcazar; Historical Retrospect; Praiseworthy Institutions of the Archbishop Lorenzana; the University; Toledo Sword Manufactory; the Franciscan Convent; Return to Madrid.
A few weeks before I visited Toledo, a public conveyance had been for the first time established between that city and the capital. This conveyance left Madrid every alternate day, and partook of the double nature of a waggon, and of a diligence: externally, it was a waggon; but seats within, and glass windows, entitled it to the rank of a diligence. I took my place in this vehicle, at four in the morning, after having stumbled over more than one person lying asleep on the pavement, in groping my way through the streets from my lodgings to the waggon office.
It is a striking commentary upon the backward state of Spain, and the general want of enterprise that distinguishes both the government and the people, that there should be no road from the capital, to the largest city lying within a hundred miles of it—the ancient metropolis of Spain; and yet such is the fact: for although the conveyance I speak of makes its way from Madrid to Toledo, a distance of nearly sixty miles, in about fifteen hours, it travels over any thing but a road, with the exception of the first ten miles from Madrid: after this, there is sometimes a visible track, and sometimes none; most commonly, we passed over wide sands; at other times over ploughed fields, or meadows; and it was not until we arrived within half a league of Toledo, that we again found a road.
The country between Madrid and Toledo, I need scarcely say, is ill peopled and ill cultivated; for it is all a part of the same arid plain that stretches on every side around the capital; and which is bounded on this side, by the Tagus. The whole of the way to Toledo, I passed through only four inconsiderable villages; and saw two others at a distance. A great part of the land is uncultivated, covered with furze and aromatic plants; but here and there some corn land is to be seen, and I noticed one or two ploughs in the fields; these were worked by two mules and one man, and seemed only to scratch the soil. The great curse of every part of Castile, is want of water; in this journey of sixty miles, I passed only two insignificant brooks,—so very insignificant, that a child might have dammed up either of them in a few minutes with stones and sand: in fact, from the Douro to the Tagus, there is not a stream ancle deep, unless when swoln by sudden floods.
I was much amused in this journey, by the manner of driving our diligence. We had seven excellent mules, which carried us the whole way; and these were managed in the true Spanish mode, which does not admit of postilions. Two men sit in front; one always keeps his place, holding the reins, and guiding the two nearest mules; the other leaps from his seat every few minutes, runs alongside the mules, applies two or three lashes to each, gets them into a gallop, and as they pass by, he lays hold of the tail of the hindermost mule, and whisks into his place, where he remains until the laziness of the mules, or a piece of level ground, again calls him into activity. The sagacity of the mules struck me as most extraordinary; after being put into a gallop, the three front mules were left entirely to themselves; and yet they unerringly discovered the best track; avoided the greatest inequalities; and made their turnings with the utmost precision.
We stopped some time before mid-day at a venta, to refresh the mules, the muleteers, and the travellers; who, besides myself, consisted of three priests and one woman, the wife of a tradesman in Toledo. This was one of those ventas of which I had often heard, but had not yet seen—where, in reply to the question, “what have you got to eat?” you are answered, “whatever you have brought with you.” For my part, I had brought nothing; but the clerigos had provided well against the assaults of the flesh; and a cold stew of various fowls and bacon being produced by them, and heated by the mistress of the venta, we made a hearty and comfortable dinner; and then continued our journey.
Toledo is seen about a league before reaching it; and, with the exception of Granada, its situation is the most striking of any city in Spain. Its fine irregular line of buildings cover the summit and the upper part of a hill of considerable elevation; behind which, the dark romantic range of the Toledo mountains forms a majestic back-ground. Even at this distance, Toledo is evidently no city of yesterday; for besides the innumerable towers of its convents, churches, and stupendous cathedral—the metropolitan of Spain—the outline is broken by other buildings of a more grotesque, or more massive form; while here and there, the still greater irregularity of the outline points to ages too remote, to have left to modern times any other legacy than their ruins. Toledo was still illuminated by the setting sun when I caught the first view of it; but before arriving under its walls, all was dusky, excepting the summits of the mountains behind; these still wore the purple light of evening; and the meanderings of the Tagus, flowing westward, were also visible beneath those bright orange tints that are peculiar to Spanish skies.