Next morning we proceeded to Mengibar, a miserable hamlet, where we were detained by some wild-looking peasants and a nondescript soldier in a gorro without stockings, but with a sword in his hand. The passports were received in the same way, and returned duly viséd by the Junta de Sanidad. In almost every town some sort of detention took place, generally of about half an hour, but varying in detail according to the plan laid down by each petty Junta.
At Guarroman a carriage, supposed to have a person from Seville in it, was turned out of the town, and the passengers obliged to pass the day in the sun, without food or communication, while some steps were taken to procure them a cortijo.
At Manzanares, where we arrived early, we were detained much longer, as none of the peasants could read or write, and the passports had to be taken to the Escribano, who was in bed, and had left orders not to be disturbed.
At Ocaña, where we ought to have rested some hours and supped, the diligence was peremptorily ordered out of the town. We were driven out and left to ourselves; the innkeeper, who ought to have provided food, not having done so because there might be some difficulty in his getting paid. However, a party in the carriage fared better: several ladies, attended by two officers of the garrison with servants, came down to the diligence with provisions, remained with it an hour, and then returned to Ocaña with the very guards who were appointed to prevent all communication.
At Aranjuez, the next town, we were admitted without stoppage, enquiry, or notice of any sort.
It is needless to point out to you the absurdity of these proceedings, so vexatious to travellers, and so utterly ill calculated to produce any good effect. Persons suspected of being infected are allowed to remain in full communication with inhabitants of the town, before their actual freedom from disease is ascertained. The commonest measures of sanitary precautions are neglected. There was no bar, no rope across the road, no fixed spot for the travellers to communicate with the guards, no receiving papers or passports with tongs, or with vinegar, or any of the usual disinfecting processes.
Each little town seemed to act according to its own ideas, and all absolute and peremptory; all in equal ignorance of what was passing below and left in equal ignorance by the authorities at Madrid; without orders or instructions, or one general simple plan to be adopted everywhere, each petty village acting for itself as if no other town existed, and without reference to the public good.
Depend upon it, they are adopting the sure means of rapidly communicating the disease, and any one infected traveller will bring it, to a certainty, to Madrid, if no better precautions are taken in the towns nearer the disorder.