Unlucky the traveller who has to traverse it, exposed as we were to
heavy and repeated showers of rain. There is no escape nor shelter.
Our only protection was our Spanish cloaks, which nearly covered man
and horse, but grew heavier every mile. By the time we had lived
through one shower we would see another slowly but inevitably
approaching; fortunately in the interval there would be an outbreak of
bright, warm, Andalusian sunshine, which would make our cloaks send up
wreaths of steam, but which partially dried them before the next
drenching.
Shortly after sunset we arrived at Arahal, a little town among the
hills. We found it in a bustle with a party of miquelets, who were
patrolling the country to ferret out robbers. The appearance of
foreigners like ourselves was an unusual circumstance in an interior
country town; and little Spanish towns of the kind are easily put in a
state of gossip and wonderment by such an occurrence. Mine host,
with two or three old wiseacre comrades in brown Cloaks, studied our
passports in a corner of the posada, while an Alguazil took notes by
the dim light of a lamp. The passports were in foreign languages and
perplexed them, but our Squire Sancho assisted them in their
studies, and magnified our importance with the grandiloquence of a
Spaniard. In the mean time the magnificent distribution of a few
cigars had won the hearts of all around us; in a little while the
whole community seemed put in agitation to make us welcome.
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