Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/313

Rh us where we liked. This was our last league, and the weather was frosty.

We arrived at the Barbacena hotel when it was dusk, and found it a decent but not luxurious inn, kept by an unfortunate family named Paes. At the door we saw a good-humoured Irish face, which proved to be that of our master of the horse, Mr. James Fitzpatrick, of the Morro Velho Company, who was awaiting Richard and myself with two blacks and ten animals. We therefore asked for one of the spare mules and saddles for Mr. E, who had decided to accompany us to the mines. The town appeared quite deserted, but I thought it was because it was dark and cold and the people were all dining or supping. We were tired, and went to bed directly after dinner.

Next day we inspected Barbacena, a white town upon an eminence. The town is built in the form of a cross, the arms being long. It is three thousand eight hundred feet above sea-level, and is very cold except in the sun. There was little to see except four churches, all poor and miserable except the Matriz, which was the usual whitewashed barn with a few gaudy figures. It was a dead-alive kind of place, with all the houses shut up and to be bought for very little. All the young men were gone to the war. There was no one about: no society, not even a market; no carriage save the public coach, with its skeleton horses eating the grass in the streets.

After dinner that evening we saw a black corpse on a stretcher. The porters were laughing and talking and merrily jolting it from side to side,