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Updated: May 15, 2025
Perhaps there is no place in the world where servants more abound than at Madrid, or at least fellows eager to proffer their services in the expectation of receiving food and wages, though, with respect to the actual service which they are capable of performing, not much can be said; but I was in want of a servant of no common description, a shrewd active fellow, of whose advice, in cases of emergency, I could occasionally avail myself; courageous withal, for it certainly required some degree of courage to follow a master bent on exploring the greater part of Spain, and who intended to travel, not under the protection of muleteers and carmen, but on his own cabalgaduras.
He told us at random of the attack on the windmills and the flocks of sheep, of the night in the valley of the fulling-mills with their trip-hammers, of the inn and the muleteers, of the tossing of Sancho in the blanket, of the island that was given him to govern, and of all the merry pranks at the duke's and duchess's, of the liberation of the galley-slaves, of the capture of Mambrino's helmet, and of Sancho's invention of the enchanted Dulcinea, and whatever else there was wonderful and delightful in the most wonderful and delightful book in the world.
Farewell to the evening meal in the tent door, to the couch on the friendly earth, to the yells of the muleteers, to the deliberate marches of the plodding horse, and the endless rocking of the dromedary that knoweth his master!
The muleteers, as they walked beside their teams, by order of Kit Carson held in one hand their rifles, while in the other were their whips, which, from time to time, they were obliged to apply freely to their animals in order to keep the caravan in compact order.
This he carefully packed on his mules, and by the time the embassy came up, having started some time later than he, after a good breakfast, he was ready to go on again with the remainder of the muleteers and the camel-drivers to prepare the evening meal and pitch for the night a camp over which waved the flag of Greece. Here the offerings of provisions or money were made with equal profusion.
Finally, at 10:10 Tuesday morning, April 2d, having completed all our work, we started from El Triunfo for our last ride of the season. We could easily have gone, starting in the early morning, to El Salto before night; as it was, Don Enrique planned a different method. We had good animals, which he had loaned us, or for which he had arranged for us with the muleteers.
By and by the wanderer began to retrace his steps, came back to Valparaiso, and with his last new servant, Jules Berraut, rode thence in one night ninety miles to Santiago again. Again he started with muleteers and servants on the difficult and perilous journey over the Cordilleras, and thence across the Pampas to Buenos Ayres, Monte Video, and Rio de Janeiro.
In every shadow cast by the moon upon the ground, they thought they saw a robber on his big horse. During the day they slept at wayside inns, and in return for little services rendered by Ahmed to the muleteers, they would give him a handful of rice or bread, or a few dried fruits which kept them from starvation.
At evening the muleteers would amuse the strangers by dancing the national dances, and then repose in picturesque groups just suited to artistic sketching. In Scotland and in Switzerland, as well as in various portions of her own country, she had similar experiences, and her "Hay-Making in Auvergne" proves that she was familiar with the more usual phases of country life.
Benedict, mounted on two dromedaries, for not less tall were the two mules they rode on. They wore travelling spectacles and carried sunshades; and behind them came a coach attended by four or five persons on horseback and two muleteers on foot.
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