t me to drive, and I
had the experience and the responsibility myself, that you wasted time
grovelling to animal prejudices; but I've changed my mind. I've learned
there's no fun to be got out of pig-selfishness on the road, and leaving a
trail of distress behind."

"If you hadn't come to feel that, I couldn't have made over my car to
you," said I. "Road brutality would be peculiarly brutal in Spain, where
motoring's a new sport, and peasants must be made accustomed to it. Every
motorist who slows down for frightened animals, or gets out to help, is
paving the way for future motorists."

"Somehow I don't believe Carmona'll lay much pavement for us," said Dick,
chuckling.

"Monica won't stand it if he doesn't," said I. "He's got her sitting
beside him, the beggar; and it's his _metier_ to please her."

We had lost the trail of the pneus, but as the country changed we picked
it up again. We were among trees now, and the mountain sides were green
with oak and poplar, though as we dropped the landscape darkened into
desolation. The bleak corner of the world towards which we were speeding
had that formless, featureless look which one sees on common faces, as if
it had been shaken together carelessly by the great Creator in an
absent-minded moment.

No scenery can be unattractive to a motorist while his car goes well, and
the sweet wind flutters against his face; but even I had to admit that
this country--illumined only by snow mountains walling the horizon--would be
irredeemable in dead summer heats.

My map, which I consulted as Dick drove, said that we had passed out of
Navarre into Alava; and suddenly I noticed that we had crossed the
watershed, for the bright streams, instead of running down to the Bay of
Biscay, were spinning silver threads towards the Ebro, on the way to
tumble into the Mediterranean by Tarragona.

Here and there my longing for the strange and picturesque was gratified by
the tragic grace of a tall, ruined watch-tower crowning a desolate hill, a
vivid reminder of days when red fire-signals flashed from hill to hill to
call good Christian men to arms against the Moors. Sometimes creamy
billows of Pyrenean sheep surged round our car, graceful and beautiful
creatures with streaming banners of wool, and faces only less intelligent
than those of the grey dog that rallied them to order, and the brown
shepherd in fluttering garments of red and blue.

The farther south we came, the darker grew the mil