I Wished To Have Purchased A Mule, But, Though I Offered
Thirty Pounds For A Sorry One, I Could Not Obtain Her; Whereas The
Cost Of Both The Horses, Tall Powerful Stately Animals, Scarcely
Amounted To That Sum.
The state of the surrounding country at this time was not very
favourable for venturing forth:
Cabrera was within nine leagues of
Madrid, with an army nearly ten thousand strong; he had beaten
several small detachments of the queen's troops, and had ravaged La
Mancha with fire and sword, burning several towns; bands of
affrighted fugitives were arriving every hour, bringing tidings of
woe and disaster, and I was only surprised that the enemy did not
appear, and by taking Madrid, which was almost at his mercy, put an
end to the war at once. But the truth is, that the Carlist
generals did not wish the war to cease, for as long as the country
was involved in bloodshed and anarchy, they could plunder and
exercise that lawless authority so dear to men of fierce and brutal
passions. Cabrera, moreover, was a dastardly wretch, whose limited
mind was incapable of harbouring a single conception approaching to
grandeur; whose heroic deeds were confined to cutting down
defenceless men, and to forcing and disembowelling unhappy women;
and yet I have seen this wretched fellow termed by French journals
(Carlist of course) the young, the heroic general. Infamy on the
cowardly assassin! The shabbiest corporal of Napoleon would have
laughed at his generalship, and half a battalion of Austrian
grenadiers would have driven him and his rabble army headlong into
the Ebro.
I now made preparations for my journey into the north. I was
already provided with horses well calculated to support the
fatigues of the road and the burdens which I might deem necessary
to impose upon them. One thing, however, was still lacking,
indispensable to a person about to engage on an expedition of this
description; I mean a servant to attend me. 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. Such a servant, perhaps, I might have sought for
years without finding; chance, however, brought one to my hand at
the very time I wanted him, without it being necessary for me to
make any laborious perquisitions. I was one day mentioning the
subject to Mr. Borrego, at whose establishment I had printed the
New Testament, and inquiring whether he thought that such an
individual was to be found in Madrid, adding that I was
particularly anxious to obtain a servant who, besides Spanish,
could speak some other language, that occasionally we might
discourse without being understood by those who might overhear us.
"The very description of person," he replied, "that you appear to
be in need of, quitted me about half an hour ago, and, it is
singular enough, came to me in the hope that I might be able to
recommend him to a master.
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