The diligences, though only introduced into Spain in 1821, were admirably managed. Travelling over excellent main roads, drawn by teams of eight, twelve, or sometimes fifteen mules, they were lighter, more roomy, and faster than those in France. As compared with English stage-coaches, a traveller[9] considered them to be more comfortable than our own, and equally regular in their working. Posting was almost unknown, and people who in England would have hired post-horses, travelled by the public coaches. Even royal personages did not disdain their use. The journey from Seville to Madrid occupied four and a-half days, a few hours every evening being allowed for sleep on the journey. The fares varied with the places, ranging from £9 in the berlina to £5 10s. on the outside.
The living portions of the equipage were picturesque in the extreme. The mules, whose harness was adorned with skeins and tassels of gay-coloured worsted, were shorn smooth, except on the flanks and cruppers, where the hair was allowed to grow in fantastic patterns. The driver wore a sugarloaf-shaped, broad-brimmed hat over a bright silk handkerchief, tied round his head so that the tails hung down behind. He was clothed in a short jacket of brown cloth, embroidered on the back and arms with vases and flowers, and breeches of blue plush, adorned with stripes and filigree buttons, bound at the knees with cords and tassels of silk. His neck was open, with a turn-down collar, and a gaudy tie passed loosely through a ring. His waist was girt with a yellow sash. His legs were encased in stockings and embroidered gaiters, and his feet shod with brown boots of untanned calfskin. Mounting to his perch, gathering the skein of reins in his hand, cracking his whip, calling on each of the mules by her high-sounding name, he set his team in motion,—his helper, a humble imitator of his master in the matter of dress, running by the side of the animals, encouraging, reviling, or pelting them, with unerring aim, from the stones with which he had filled his sash. So the diligence rattled past the Tobacco Factory out of the city gate, under the Moorish wall, through an arch of the Roman aqueduct, and on to the great high road to Madrid.
One part of the journey, at least, was full of interest to Ford. He carried Don Quixote with him on all his travels, knew the book by heart, and now found himself passing through the barren district of La Mancha. Here was Argamasilla de Alba, the village of Don Quixote, and the site of the prison in which, as tradition wrongly asserted, Cervantes wrote his book. Here, with its neighbouring well, was the Venta de Quesada, scarcely changed in external aspect since it was the scene of the knighting of the “lantern-jawed” Don; here was El Toboso, where Dulcinea lived; here the Sierra, where the knight did penance; here, at the mouth of the gorge of Despeña-perros, was the Venta de Cardenas, which perhaps suggested the name of Cardenio for the “Ragged one of the Sorry Countenance,” and, above the pass, was the spot where he told his tale. Valdepeñas was still littered with the wine-swollen pig-skins, which Don Quixote attacked; the waterless uplands bristled with windmills; and in every village toiled numbers of brown-clad, sandal-shod Sancho Panzas.
April 2 [1831].
I venture to take up a moment of your time, to say that I have taken my place in the diligence for Thursday next, and shall, in due time, God willing, arrive in Madrid on Monday the 11th. I accept with great thankfulness the offer you make of giving me a room in your house, and will give you no trouble, I assure you.
No doubt you have had a long protest, etc., etc., from Brackenbury[10] on the subject of Captain Bigge’s ill-usage at Cadiz. Now, as Bigge is an old friend of mine, I can tell you en confidence something about it. In the first place, he thinks neither of Liberals nor Constitutions, but only where he can get the best cigars. He was dining with me, and talking of his Cadiz adventures, when he let out that he was a friend of Torrijos and Calderon; that his passport was signed the 3rd of March, the fatal day; that he had told a girl he was dancing with in Cadiz last Carnival to beware of the Ides of March, and not to venture out on the 3rd. Now, all this being duly reported to the police, in such a moment as this, was enough to make them treat him as a suspected person,—very unjustly, but, still, on these sort of matters Spaniards do not understand how young men talk in England. I just mention all this to put you au courant.
We have also here a Captain Cook, a navigator[11] (but not the Captain Cook). He is a great geologist and stuffer of little birds, a tall, stiff man, with a sort of philosophical hat, that Buckland or Cuvier might wear. Now you know what you have to expect in Madrid.
I have had a most civil letter from General O’Lawlor, of Granada (having sent him a letter his master, the great Duke, gave me). He has procured me the refusal of the Alhambra; but it is represented to be in a ruinous condition, and, as my children and English servants have no taste for the Moorish picturesque, but a great notion of the more humble gratification proceeding from a comfortable house and well-appointed kitchen, I am rather inclined to put up with the unromantic reality of some good ready-furnished house.
Meantime vive valeque! I hope very shortly to pay my personal respects to your Excellency.
Sevilla, May 14.