Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 098.djvu/88

76 guitars and Moorish roundelay mingled with cigarra's voice and warbling nightingale!

The task is vain. The wayward pen is powerless to describe the thousand varied beauties of this Paradise—the charming Lanjaron.

But even the contemplation of natural beauty must cease in deference to the sterner calls of eating, drinking, and sleeping. There is no hotel at Lanjaron—not even a venta, or a casa di pupilos, only a posada. Do not fear to enter that posada—you shall come to no harm. There, in an enormous shed, elevated with Arab arches, and fretted with carved arabesques, amidst scores of donkeys, mules, and horses, pedlars, gipsies, gentlemen of the capa parda and long gun—highwaymen perhaps, or professed bull-fighters — slip your saddles, unpack your beds, eat and drink whatever you have got, or whatever you can get, go to sleep and dream of Lanjaron. Don't fear that black-looking gentleman in the corner; he may be a cut-throat—he may be one of the Cuadrilla of bull-fighters on thmr way to Granada. In the mountain, had he met you, possibly you would have been considered fair game, but you are sacred under this roof, so take your rest!

 

