The
weather during the greater part of the day had been dull and
lowering, and we found the atmosphere of Betanzos insupportably
close and heavy.
Sour and disagreeable odours assailed our
olfactory organs from all sides. The streets were filthy - so were
the houses, and especially the posada. We entered the stable; it
was strewed with rotten sea-weeds and other rubbish, in which pigs
were wallowing; huge and loathsome flies were buzzing around.
"What a pest-house!" I exclaimed. But we could find no other
stable, and were therefore obliged to tether the unhappy animals to
the filthy mangers. The only provender that could be obtained was
Indian corn. At nightfall I led them to drink at a small river
which passes through Betanzos. My entero swallowed the water
greedily; but as we returned towards the inn, I observed that he
was sad, and that his head drooped. He had scarcely reached the
stall, when a deep hoarse cough assailed him. I remembered the
words of the ostler in the mountains, "the man must be mad who
brings a horse to Galicia, and doubly so he who brings an entero."
During the greater part of the day the animal had been much heated,
walking amidst a throng of at least a hundred pony mares. He now
began to shiver violently. I procured a quart of anise brandy,
with which, assisted by Antonio, I rubbed his body for nearly an
hour, till his coat was covered with a white foam; but his cough
increased perceptibly, his eyes were becoming fixed, and his
members rigid.
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