"MAY WE KODAK YOU?" "THEY ALL DO," HE REPLIED.
The red-capped station masters were important personages. At the principal stations they directed the starting of the trains with the greatest care and deliberation. In our own country the conductor's hand touches the signal-cord and the train moves. At Ronda, a bell in the station rang, then a red-capped employee trotted along the length of the train ringing a hand dinner bell. A minute later he repeated his trip with warning bell, then the whistle tooted, but it was not until the red-cap was sure that every passenger was aboard that the whistle issued a second toot and the wheels began to revolve. These extraordinary precautions, although affording amusement for the tourists, may have been taken under special orders of the railroad officials in order to avoid accidents and insure our safety. At any rate, we know that the railroad officials and their Spanish employees did give us special attention and treat us with kindness and courtesy.
Through many deep cuts and tunnels, over romantic gorges of dark depth, and along cliffs whose heights we could not see, the train climbed and crossed a mountain range. As the car emerged from tunnel or cut, changing scenes of wild and savage landscape appeared near by, and charming glimpses of distant valleys far below. The torrents and waterfalls of the river Gaudiara added to the weird beauty of the scene. A stanza in Southey's poem, "The Cataract of Lodore," fittingly describes the wildness of the river that we crossed and re-crossed so often:
"Here it comes sparkling
And there it lies darkling:
Now smoking and frothing
The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing:
And so never ending but ever descending,
Sound and motions forever are blending."
A famous canyon, deep and narrow, with rushing, foaming stream, seemed like a crevice sliced down by a gigantic blade. Towns and villages far away amid green fields and gray olive orchards, and buildings of white and cream, luminous in the sunlight, with backgrounds of dark and rugged mountains, produced a succession of picturesque views. Among the hills were seen young Davids, staff in hand, guarding flocks of grazing sheep, ancient swineherds lazily watching droves of swine feeding on the roots, and goatherds following their nimble-footed brown herds as they picked their way among the rocks.
As we approached our destination, the valleys showed signs of great prosperity. The fields were highly cultivated; the farms were irrigated by ditches of flowing water; the orchards were well trimmed; the buildings larger; and the red-sashed laborers more sprucely attired.
MARVELOUSLY BEAUTIFUL IN MOORISH SPLENDOUR.
At Pinos we saw the stone bridge where, in 1492, Columbus, on his way to France, disheartened by his failure to interest King Ferdinand in his plans, was over-taken by Queen Isabella's messenger and summoned back to court to receive his commission.
As twilight was settling down we arrived on schedule time at the white stone station in Granada where carriages stood in waiting to convey us to the hotels. The Spanish drivers strove to surpass each other in speed. Our coachman lashed his horses till they ran like a run-away team. Regardless of anyone in the streets, grazing wagons by the way, overtaking and passing carriages ahead, he gave us the wildest ride we had ever taken. This chariot race to the hotel, a distance of over a mile, happily ended without accident or collision.