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And as for the hopes of relief in any other port, they were not to be depended upon, for the captain had positively declared he was sure of a wind, and would let go his anchor no more till he arrived in the Tajo. When a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted on this occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its not having presented itself the first moment.
We were descending the hilly road very rapidly, when by some means the horses took fright, and broke into a full-gallop, crossing and re-crossing the road in a fearful manner. The driver was thrown on the footboard, poor Tajo hung by his chain against the horses' legs, and our situation was most critical.
About seven in the evening I got into a chaise on shore, and was driven through the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one of the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a very fine prospect of the river Tajo from Lisbon to the sea.
At dark came Tula, ancient capital of the Toltecs, after which night hid all the scene there might have been, but for glimpses by the light of the train of the great tajo cut through the hills to drain the ancient valley of Anahuac. On we sped through the night, which if anything became a trifle warmer.
The running water murmured sleepily as it hurried in its narrow channel towards the outlet through the grey wall, whence it leapt four hundred feet into the Tajo below. Estella was seated in the shade of a gnarled fig tree, where tables and chairs indicated the Spanish habit of an out-of-door existence. She rose as he came towards her, and met his eyes gravely.
His patriotism finds powerful expression, as already noted, in the Profecia del Tajo, besprinkled with sonorous place-names, these growing fewer as the movement is accelerated, and Father Tagus describes with a mixture of picturesque mediaeval sentiment and martial music the onset of the Arabs and the clangour of arms as they meet the doomed Gothic host.
The population wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha. I found tolerable quarters in a house on the plaza, and took the remaining hour of daylight to view the town. The people looked at me with curiosity, and some boys, walking on the edge of the tajo, or precipice, threw over stones that I might see how deep it was.
How this coronation turned out whether the son of Tajo allowed it to pass quietly whether he has met the fate of many an unfortunate European pretender, or survives to become the originator of a civil war, which may yet give another destiny to Tahaiti, remains to be learnt from the accounts of some future traveller.
This is a very high mountain, situated on the northern side of the mouth of the river Tajo, which, rising about Madrid, in Spain, and soon becoming navigable for small craft, empties itself, after a long course, into the sea, about four leagues below Lisbon.
She raised her dark eyes to his for a moment, and their tenderness was not of earth or of this world at all. Then she tore the envelope and its contents slowly into a hundred pieces, and dropped the fluttering papers into the stream pacing in its marble bed towards the Tajo and the oblivion of the sea. 'There I have destroyed the letter, she said, with a thoughtful little smile.
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