is, however, for those who object to
add so much to the actual distance, a track, known, in all its
sinuosities, throughout its depths and its shallows, around its bays,
promontories, islands, and peninsulas--to the driver of the diligence,
and to the mounted bearer of the mail; both of whom travel on the same
days of the week, in order to furnish reciprocal aid, in case of damage
to either. A twenty-four hours' fall of rain renders this track
impassable by the usual conveyance; a very unusual sort of carriage is
consequently kept in reserve for these occasions, and, as the period of
my journey happened to coincide with an uncommonly aqueous disposition
of the Castilian skies, I was fortunately enabled to witness the less
every day, and more eventful transit, to which this arrangement gave
rise.

Accordingly at four o'clock on an April morning--an hour later than is
the custom on the road from France to Madrid--I ascended the steps of a
carriage, selected for its lightness, which to those who know anything
of Continental coach-building, conveys a sufficient idea of its probable
solidity. There was not yet sufficient daylight to take a view of this
fabric; but I saw, by the aid of a lantern, my luggage lifted into a
sort of loose net, composed of straw-ropes, and suspended between the
hind wheels in precisely such juxtaposition, as to make the
portmanteaus, bags, &c. bear the same topographic relation to the
vehicle, as the truffles do to a turkey, or the stuffing to a duck.
There was much grumbling about the quantity of my luggage, and some
hints thrown out, relative to the additional perils, suspended over our
heads, or rather, under our seats, in consequence of the coincidence of
the unusual weight, with the bad state of the _road_, as they termed it,
and the acknowledged caducity of the carriage. I really was, in fact,
the only one to blame; for I could not discover, besides my things, more
than two small valises belonging to all the other six passengers
together.

At length we set off, and at a distance of four miles from Madrid, as
day began to break, we broke down.

The break-down was neither violent nor dangerous, and was occasioned by
the crash of a hind wheel, while our pace did not exceed a walk: but it
was productive of some amusement, owing to the position, near the corner
of the vehicle which took the greatest fancy to _terra firma_, of a not
over heroic limb of the Castilian law, who had endeavoured to