really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have
heard, it is even worse than I have described.

Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill,
under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and
east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which
separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a
silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines
in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." If it shines at all, it
is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I
could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated,
and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.

Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a _dehesa_, a
boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks
of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here
and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of
palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. The road was a deep, red
sand, and our mules toiled along slowly and painfully, urged by the
incessant cries of the _mayoral_, or conductor, and his _mozo_. As the
mayoral's whip could only reach the second span, the business of the
latter was to jump down every ten minutes, run ahead and belabor the
flanks of the foremost mules, uttering at the same time a series of sharp
howls, which seemed to strike the poor beasts with quite as much severity
as his whip. I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these
cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small
throat. When it came to a hard pull, they cracked and exploded like
volleys of musketry, and flew like hail-stones about the ears of the
_machos_ (he-mules). The postillion, having only the care of the foremost
span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the
saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to
the interest of a journey by night.

The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the
plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the
City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and
rainy that I saw nothing, not even the classic Xenil, the river of
Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The
nigh