There were two young Frenchmen present who had also been at Toledo, and they now joined in the cry. They were starved, unhandsomely treated, badly housed, overcharged.
“But there is a comfortable hotel at Toledo,” I said; “we found very good food, moderate charges, and such civil people, at the Hôtel de Leno.”
There was a general exclamation of surprise.
“That is the very place we are complaining of!” they all said; and we compared notes with as much perplexity as amusement.
I don’t at all understand the usual tone taken by tourists in describing Spanish inns. We never found anything to complain of, and yet how few people admit the possibility of ladies travelling comfortably in Spain! Carry with you a tolerable supply of patience and gold pieces, you will do very well. Carry with you, also, always ready for use, a little courteous Castellano, which will often stand in good stead of many more costly things, such as time, money, and temper. Moreover, reverse the Micawber principle, and never expect anything to turn up, for that will save many a discomfort to yourself and others. The Spaniards are terribly slow and procrastinating, but the fact must be accepted as it is, and made the best of; as well expect an American to be lethargic as a Spaniard to be quick.
From Toledo to Cordova is a very long railway journey. You have to wait from seven o’clock in the evening till midnight to catch the down train from Madrid, which waiting might, of course, be easily avoided. Fancy waiting five or six hours at Didcot for the Leamington train! But mañana, mañana, all the good changes will take place in time!
We found the waiting at Castilejo not so bad as might be. Tourists had said to us with a shrug of the shoulders, “It is a terrible ordeal to go through, that waiting at Castilejo. There will, very likely, be neither fire nor light, and you will have to choose between a dark hole of a waiting-room, full of men smoking, or get into an empty railway-carriage and wait there.”
We certainly were agreeably surprised to find a blazing fire; a room that, if not exceptionally clean, was at least airy and wholesome; and instead of the crowd of smokers we had been led to expect, a young Madrid lady with her maid and dog, two or three respectable servant girls, and one elderly railway guard, who might have been Don Quixote, he was so grim and so gallant. The girls dropped off to sleep one by one; the guard puffed away his inoffensive little cigarette deep in thought, and we got out our books and amused ourselves very well. There was a livelier scene at the buffet just behind the waiting-room, for, when I went to beg an extra light and to ask for chocolate, I found a number of soldiers and peasants regaling on hot little bits of meat that came, as if by magic, from behind the counter.
The young woman in attendance was, as usual, civil but indifferent.
“Have you chocolate?” I asked.