Myself. - Batuschca, you mean; the men were Russians.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Oviedo - The Ten Gentlemen - The Swiss again - Modest Request - The
Robbers - Episcopal Benevolence - The Cathedral - Portrait of Feijoo.
I must now take a considerable stride in my journey, no less than
from Muros to Oviedo, contenting myself with observing, that we
proceeded from Muros to Velez, and from thence to Giyon, where our
guide Martin bade us farewell, and returned with his mare to
Rivadeo. The honest fellow did not part without many expressions
of regret, indeed he even expressed a desire that I should take him
and his mare into my service; "for," said he, "I have a great
desire to run through all Spain, and even the world; and I am sure
I shall never have a better opportunity than by attaching myself to
your worship's skirts." On my reminding him, however, of his wife
and family, for he had both, he said, "True, true, I had forgotten
them: happy the guide whose only wife and family are a mare and
foal."
Oviedo is about three leagues from Giyon. Antonio rode the horse,
whilst I proceeded thither in a kind of diligence which runs daily
between the two towns. The road is good, but mountainous. I
arrived safely at the capital of the Asturias, although at a rather
unpropitious season, for the din of war was at the gate, and there
was the cry of the captains and the shouting. Castile, at the time
of which I am writing, was in the hands of the Carlists, who had
captured and plundered Valladolid in much the same manner as they
had Segovia some time before.
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