Seven Spanish Cities; And the Way to Them

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIX. JACA. And you must not stay here chattering on the public square. Here are all the diligences ready, and half Huesca is here to see us start. The nice girl, as above, runs down with the sewingmachine book, if indeed it were not a Pathfinder guide. The host and the hostess wish us a pleasant journey, and we wish them happy lives. Another of those charming diligence rides begins, such as I have tried to describe before. Yes, it is the very road which Melisendra trotted over, fearing the Moors behind; but now it is a perfect highway. In Huesca all the people come out in admiration to witness our departure, and well they may. The eight mules run like fury, though the course is all uphill. Then comes such a sunset as no man ever described, or will; and then, in the northeast, the moon, not full, but large enough for us. Why will no one tell us what are those wonderful lines in Schiller's Robbers, how the moon rises when the sun goes down? Because we are in Spain. You must not quote Schiller's Robbers in Spain. Might you quote Don Carlos? Perhaps--Why not--Are you going to sleep? Asleep in this moonlight--moonlight--moonlight. Somebody is asleep. They have all stopped chattering. I believe they are all asleep. They certainly are. Whether we sleep or wake, the eight mules forge on and the soft moon shines. And at last the morning. The mist of dawning gray begins to dapple into day, and you know that the miracle of life is to be renewed. The road passes along by a strange battlemented wall, -- yes, Charlemagne passed that same wall, and other princes near a thousand years before him. Marcus Porcius Cato, your old friend of the Latin Reader and of Viri Romae, built it some two hundred years before the Christian era. A few guards at the ...