“Come up, commodore: I think we can make room for you,” added Sheridan.
“This is a long team,” said Commodore Cantwell, when they were seated,—“ten mules and horses.”
“I have travelled with sixteen,” added the doctor.
On a seat wide enough for two, under the windows of the berlina, the driver took his place. His reins were a couple of ropes reaching to the outside ends of the bits of the wheel-horses. He was more properly the brakeman, since he had little to do with the team, except to yell at the animals. On the nigh horse or mule, as he happened to be, rode a young man who conducted the procession. He is called the delantero. The zagal is a fellow who runs at the side of the animals, and whips them up with a long stick. The mayoral is the conductor, who is sometimes the driver; but in this case he seemed to have the charge of all the diligences.
“Oja! oja!” (o-ha) yelled the driver. The zagal began to hammer the brutes most unmercifully, and the team started at a lively pace.
“That’s too bad!” exclaimed Sheridan, when he saw the zagal pounding the mules over the backbone with his club, which was big enough to serve for a bean-pole.
“I agree with you, captain, but we can’t help ourselves,” added the doctor. “That villain will keep it up till we get to the end of our journey.”
The dilijencia passed out of the town, and went through a wild country with no signs of any inhabitants. The road was as bad as a road could be, and was nothing but a track beaten over the fields, passing over rocks and through gullies and pools of water. Carts, drawn by long strings of mules or donkeys, driven by a peasant with a gun over his shoulder, were occasionally met; but the road was very lonely. Half way to Loxa they came to a river, over which was a narrow bridge for pedestrians; but the dilijencia had to ford the stream.
At this point the horses and mules were changed; and some of the students went over the bridge, and walked till they were overtaken by the coaches. At three o’clock they drove into Loxa. The streets of the town are very steep and very narrow; and the zagal had to crowd the team over to the opposite side, in order to get the vehicle around the corners. The students on the outside could have jumped into the windows of the houses on either side, and people on the ground often had to dodge into the doorways, to keep from being run over. From this place the party proceeded to Granada by railroad. Crossing a part of this city, which is a filthy hole, the party went to the Hotel Washington Irving, and the Hotel Siete Suelos, both of which are at the very gate of the Alhambra.
The doctor and his friends were quartered at the former hotel, which is a very good one, but more expensive than the Siete Suelos on the other side of the street. They are both in the gardens of the Alhambra, the avenues of which are studded with noble elms, the gift of the Duke of Wellington.