le
broke like a pipe-stem, throwing me off upon the rough stones, with the
additional misfortune of having a heavy Frenchman fall upon me. But no
bones were broken, and I still live to tell the story.

The neighborhood of the National Bridge is a favorite haunt of the
knights of the road. Though very pious in their way, they have no
scruples in relieving any priest who may fall into their hands of such
worldly possessions as he happens to have about him. In fact, they seem
to take a special delight in plundering these holy men, giving them the
precedence in relieving their wants. Out of respect to the cloth, they
omit the ceremony of searching, to which the other passengers are
subjected; nor do they compel him to lie down like the others. But with
mock solemnity a robber approaches the sacred personage, and dropping
on one knee, presents his hat for alms, which the priest understands to
be a reverential mode of demanding all the valuables that he carries
about him: his reverence having been disposed of, the women are
searched; afterward the men, one by one, are ordered to rise up to
undergo a like ceremony; and, lastly, the baggage is ransacked, and
then all are suffered to go on their way in peace, if no shots have
been fired from the stage. In former times the robbers used to divide
their plunder with the Virgin Mary, but now things are altered; the
robber takes all, and even visits the churches occasionally, not to
worship, but for plunder. If two or three priests take passage in a
single coach, people shake their heads and say, "That coach will
certainly be robbed;" and so it often happens.

The stage ordinarily passes this bridge in the night, when there is no
opportunity to look at the magnificent scenery around. I saw it once by
daylight; and long shall I remember the impression produced. I lingered
about the spot to the last moment that "Jim," or as he is here called
"San Diego," the driver, would permit. We reluctantly took our places
in the coach, and when the hostler let slip the rope that held the
heads of the leaders, our eight wild horses dashed off at a furious
rate over a roughly paved road, to the no small disturbance of the
reflections which such a spot awakens.

We tried to think of the stirring events that had here so often taken
place in times of civil war, when Gomez practiced such cruelties in the
name of liberty; when robberies and murders were committed here in
broad daylight; when the frown