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Updated: June 28, 2025
This he weighted at the corners with stones, carrying out this simple office to the dead with a suggestive indifference. To this day the Guardias Civiles have plenary power to shoot whomsoever they think fit flight and resistance being equally fatal.
The last time I came through that desert I could not help thinking how nice it would be to have two Guardias Civiles in our Pullman car; but of course at the summit of the Sierra Morena, where our rapido was stalled in the deepening twilight, it was still nicer to see that soldier pair, pacing up and down, trim, straight, very gentle and polite-looking, but firm, with their rifles lying on their shoulders which they kept exactly together.
They have bestowed upon the Frenchified guardias the appellations of polizones, a word borrowed from their neighbours, and of hijos de Luis Felipe, sons of Louis Philippe. "Spaniards," saith Richard Ford, "are full of dry humour;" he might have added, and of sharp wit.
In Spanish-American countries, the government generally maintains a force of carefully picked men, entrusted with powers that are seldom given to ordinary police. They patrol in couples, carry arms, and are sometimes called guardias civiles and sometimes rurales.
It was sufficiently uncomfortable to have some vague association with the failure of that excellent statesman's plan, blending creepily with the feeling of desolation from the gathering dark, and I now recall the distinct relief given by the unexpected appearance of two such Guardias Civiles as travel with every Spanish train, in the space before our lonely station.
Carmona is not far off, with its oriental walls and castle, famous as ever for its grateful springs. The tower of San Pedro transports us again to Tangier, as do the massy walls and arched gate. Some eight leagues on the way to Badajos from Sevílle rises a Moorish tower, giving to the adjoining village the name of Castillo de las Guardias.
This, with our long retard at Santa Elena, and our opportune defense from the depraved descendants of the reforming German colonists by the Guardias Civiles, had given us a day of so much excitement that we were anxious to have it end tranquilly at midnight in the hotel which we had chosen from, our Baedeker.
'Yes why not? And in truth the tone of the Englishman's voice had betrayed a scepticism which warranted the question. 'It is very kind of you to come so early. I have been quite comfortable, and they gave me a good supper last night, said Conyngham. 'Moreover, the Guardias Civiles are in no way to blame for my arrest. I was in bad company, it seems.
'Those should be Guardias Civiles, said Concepcion, who had studied the ways of those gentry all his life. 'But they are not. They have horses that have never been taught to stand still. As he spoke the men vanished, moving noiselessly in the thick dust which lay on the Madrid road. The General saw them go and smiled.
In any case," he adds, "I must bring out near one of the guardias, so thick along the bank, and the soldiers of the post will ferry me across. From there I'll have a good road to the town." So consoling himself, he keeps on; no longer paying much attention to the doubtful cattle track, but rather taking guidance from the sun.
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