Taught by former experience, I was not to be discomposed now. We had pierced the bowels of the Sierra Morena, and Santa Elena was but the name of a station on its southern side. The next time I fell off I enjoyed a genuine sleep. I do not think it would have roused me if "Salt Lake" or "Skibbereen" had been shouted in my ear through a speaking-trumpet.
At Menjibar, where we arrived about ten in the morning, there was a delay of twenty minutes for breakfast. By way of whet, I presume, my fellow-travellers all lit cigarettes as we were gliding up by the platform. This Spanish railway restaurant was a reproach to Mugby Junction. It was scrupulously clean, the fare was excellent, and the tariff moderate. The price of every article was legibly painted in distemper on the walls. Premising that a real is, roundly speaking, twopence halfpenny of our money, a list of some of the viands and liquids to be had and their cost will be interesting—only the reader is requested not to open the book previous to bolting his food at the hurry-up and grab-all refreshment-room at Amiens, or when he is about to confront scalding soup and monumental sandwiches at some of our British buffets. It might ruffle his temper and jeopardize his digestion. A breakfast consisting of a couple of eggs, two plates of meat or fish, dessert, bread and wine, can be had for twelve reals. The wine is the common wine of the country, and pleasant and healthy tipple it is when you get used to it. You can procure a baby bottle full for one real, and if you like to be extravagant you can pay twenty-four for a bottle of Bordeaux, or forty for a bottle of champagne. The Bordeaux is too dear. As for champagne, nobody drinks that habitually except kings of the Bonanza dynasty; but myriads of men, especially at race-meetings, drink a beverage which they take for the bubbling, roseate, kindling nectar with inspiration in every wavering pearlet. "Fizz," I think they call it. I hope they enjoy it. "Compound of crime at a sovereign a quart" (see James Smith's poems somewhere), I call it. He who quaffs champagne at dinner, save on a foggy day, is unworthy of God's gifts. The proper hour for the absorption of that delicious exhilarant is at eleven in the forenoon, and then but two glasses at the most should be taken. These glasses should not be the absurd shallow lapping-glasses, nor yet the slender stork-glasses, but the goodly tumbler. If it be summer, there should be a lump of ice in the crystal goblet; and the connoisseur will always hold it between him and the sunlight before imbibition, and ejaculate, "There's a picture!" For these hints I am indebted to that princely gourmet of palate most exquisite, John Kavanagh, of the Inman ocean-ferry line, Founder and President of the Cocktail Club, of which I am the Laureate. Returning from our divagation, the amateur of beer may have a big bottle at these Spanish railway hotels for four reals, but I counsel him abstention. It is never advisable to drink beer in a wine-growing country. The soul of Sir Wilfrid Lawson would be elevated to the height of successful joke-making at the catalogue of the teetotal drinks, which range from sugared water to milk and orangeade. My weakness is egg-flip. For dinner, which is to be partaken of at fourteen reals, one has a soup, a fry, an entrée, a roast, a salad, two sweets or fruits, bread and wine. The entrées are usually rib of mutton, veal or a beefsteak, which sometimes makes you think there is something like leather. A hen, which is a luxury, rates at fourteen reals, but a tortilla of the hen's eggs is to be preferred. If any complaints are felt to be necessary as to attendance or provand, the station-master has a volume wherein to write them down at the disposal of travellers.
From Menjibar we steamed along through a beautiful landscape of this beautiful province of Andalusia. The fields were emerald green and ought to be fertile, but they seemed to lack cultivation. Very few persons were to be seen working in them. In proportion as nature had been prodigal, man appeared to be lazy. Still, viewed as the painter, not the agriculturist would view it, the landscape was delicious in its quiet loveliness. Patches of silvery grey—that dreamy neutral silvery grey which is to be caught in perfection on willows played upon by moonlight—here and there lightened the mellow masses of verdure. Those were olive groves. The hills on the horizon, seen through an odd curtain of rain, for the day was showery, had the vaporous hazy outline of some of Murillo's pictures. Anon we passed by the bridge of Alcolea, the scene of the defeat of Queen Isabella's forces under Nouvaliches by Serrano in 1868. The field is altogether too pretty to have been defiled by a sanguinary episode of civil war. A gently winding stream courses 'mid rich undulating meadows at the base of a ridge of hills covered with cottages enbowered in plantations and orchards. As if inflamed by the warlike associations of the locality, my companions produced sword-canes, dirks and poniards, and began comparing them with the air of experts. Not one of these sociable young Spaniards was unprovided with a lethal weapon. I was devoutly thankful that they had not got to talking politics on the road, or I might have had to deplore the absence of a bye-law applying to passengers carrying edged tools from that code which so carefully shuts out the drunkard, and insists that nobody with a loaded gun or pistol shall enter a carriage.
At Córdoba the train stopped, and we changed carriages for the Andalusian capital. During my short stay I was invited to take my choice of a varied assortment of daggers, navajas, skeens, and stylets, which a sturdy hawker, who looked as if he knew how to handle them, had strung round his waist.
The fellow was a perfect walking arsenal, or rather a peripatetic bit of Sheffield, and expatiated affectionately on the temper and cutting qualities of his wares. I declined to buy. He showed his teeth, and told me I might go farther and fare worse. I was very happy to take him at his word, and get into a carriage that was going as far as Seville, which was occupied by only one person, a delicate little gentleman with a bright, keen, kindly face. To him came a courier as he leant out of the carriage-window.
"Why does one see so many Scotch caps about?" asked the little gentleman, in English.
"Because Gibraltar is near, and there are smugglers there," answered the courier.
"Why does one see so many dogs about?" asked the little gentleman.
"Because they find more food here than at home," answered the courier.
"Why does not one see the train start to time?" asked the little gentleman.