of course, abounded, and
there were oak woods and clumps of wild cherry trees. The towns were far
from the stations, which we reached at the rate of perhaps two miles an
hour as we approached the top of the hills; and we might have got out
and walked without fear of being left behind by our train, which made
long stops, as if to get its breath for another climb. Before this the
sole companion of our journey, whom we decided to be a landed proprietor
coming out in his riding-gear to inspect his possessions, had left us,
but at the first station after our descent began other passengers got
in, with a captain of Civil Guards among them, very loquacious and very
courteous, and much deferred to by the rest of us. At Bobadilla, where
again we had tea with hot goat's milk in it, we changed cars, and
from that on we had the company of a Rock-Scorpion pair whose name was
beautifully Italian and whose speech was beautifully English, as the
speech of those born at Gibraltar should rightfully be.

I

It was quite dark at Ronda when our omnibus drove into the gardened
grounds of one of those admirable inns which an English company is
building in Spain, and put us down at the door of the office, where a
typical English manageress and her assistant appointed us pleasant rooms
and had fires kindled in them while we dined. There were already fires
in the pleasant reading-room, which did not diffuse a heat too great
for health but imparted to the eye a sense of warmth such as we had
experienced nowhere else in Spain. Over all was spread a quiet and
quieting British influence; outside of the office the nature of the
service was Spanish, but the character of it was English; the Spanish
waiters spoke English, and they looked English in dress and manner;
superficially the chambermaid was as English as one could have found her
in the United Kingdom, but at heart you could see she was as absolutely
and instinctively a Spanish _camerera_ as any in a hotel of Madrid or
Seville. In the atmosphere of insularity the few Spanish guests
were scarcely distinguishable from Anglo-Saxons, though a group
of magnificent girls at a middle table, quelled by the duenna-like
correctness of their mother, looked with their exaggerated hair and eyes
like Spanish ladies made up for English parts in a play.

We had our breakfast in the reading-room where all the rest were
breakfasting and trying not to see that they were keeping one another
from the fire.