Posada

“ Presently we beheld before us the walls of Viveiro, upon which the moon was shedding its sickly lustre. We entered by a lofty and seemingly ruinous archway, and the guide conducted us at once to the posada.
Every person in Viveiro appeared to be buried in profound slumber; not so much as a dog saluted us with his bark. After much knocking we were admitted into the posada, a large and dilapidated edifice. We had scarcely housed ourselves and horses when the rain began to fall with yet more violence than before, attended with much thunder and lightning. ”

“ We took up our abode at the Posada de la Mesangería; a particularly comfortable house, as Spanish inns go, that had been opened for the accommodation of the diligence travellers since my former visit to the city. The patio, ornamented with a bubbling fountain of icy-cold water, and shaded with a profusion of all sorts of rare creepers and flowering shrubs, afforded a cool retreat at all hours of the day ”

“ In a Posada it is generally easy to secure a bed-room which boasts at any rate of clean, wholesome linen, though of but little furniture; and in the remoter parts of the country—as in Leon and Galicia—there is no difficulty in securing in the poorest Posada plenty of bird or fish of quality good enough for a gourmand. ”

“ Next comes the Posada, which accommodates man and beast, but does not always profess to supply nourishment to either.—The Venta is a kind of roadside public house, where bad accommodation, and whatever else the place contains, may be had for money. ”

“ The next day, we proceeded on the same delightful sea coast we had before passed, and through the same rich villages, on our way to Girone, Figuiere, &c. and avoided that horrid posada where the Frenchman died, by lying at a worse house, but better people: but having bought a brace of partridges, and some red fish on the road, we fared sumptuously, except in beds, which were straw mattrasses, very hard, and the room full of wet Indian corn; but we were no sooner out of our posada, than the climate and the beautiful country made ample amends for the town and posada grievances. ”

“ Spanish inns are of various degrees, from the Posada, which is usually a muleteer’s public-house, and the Parador, which is higher in rank, and where the diligence is generally to be found, up to the Fonda, which answers in idea to our hotel. In small country towns and villages a posada is the only kind of inn to be found; and sometimes indeed large towns and cities have nothing better for the traveller’s accommodation; but in the larger towns, and where there is much traffic, the Parador or Fonda will often be found to be as good as second-rate inns elsewhere usually are. ”

“ Chickens, dogs, and gaunt, self-assertive pigs wandered everywhere without restraint. In a corner slouched a woman sewing garments too small for the smallest child in sight. Our plea for lodging she treated with scorn. “Volcancito” was a posada, not a hotel, the difference between the two in Spanish-America being that in a hotel the traveler is permitted to expect certain conveniences while in a posada he accepts with smiling gratitude whatever fortune chooses to furnish him. ”

“ Returning to the Posada, we lighted our cigars; and, feeling sensibly the change in the temperature of this elevated region, we joined the natives assembled round the fireplace, who, with the courtesy natural to all Spaniards, immediately rose and offered us the seats of honour.
The portion of the apartment allotted to the human kind had now become crowded with persons of all sorts and conditions; for the animals being peacefully engaged at their evening repast, their owners thought it time to be looking after their’s. ”

“ To-day is market day. There are many farmers in from the country, and it is possible that you will find difficulties."
As we went out the waitress came running after us. "You have left your bread behind," she cried.
With our new friend we went off. But the posada was full for the night.
"There is another one, we will look at that," said our guide. "If the other is full also, you shall have my room, [Pg 251] and I will find a bed somewhere until a room is free. Tomorrow the place will be emptier."
On the way to the second posada, we fell in once more with the cord porter. ”

“ The Posada de las Estrellas was situated on the western side of the town within a stone's throw of Padre Antonio's house. It stood well back from the highroad from which it was screened by a thick hedge-like growth of cedar, manzanita, tamarisk and lilac bushes.
A short distance east of the Posada, the highroad entered the long Alameda which led to the plaza in the center of the town, overlooked by the old Precedio or Governor's palace. ”

“ The reader will observe that the Posada del Rio, which faces inwards upon its own courtyard, thrusts out upon the river at its rear a gable which overhangs the stream and flanks its small waterside garden from view of the village street. Into this garden, where the soldiers were used to sit and drink their wine of an evening, I led the Captain, whispering him to keep silence, for eight of the Frenchmen slept behind the windows above. ”

“ It is distant about five miles from the Guadalquivír, and contains three convents, and a population of 4,000 souls. The Posada is excellent.
The country from Xeres to Lebrija presents an undulated surface, which is clothed with vines and olives; but thenceforth the banks of the “olivifero Bœtis” are devoted entirely to pasture, and the road is most uninterestingly flat: so flat, indeed, that there is scarcely a rise in the whole twenty-eight miles from Lebrija to Seville. It is not passable in winter, and but one wretched hovel, called the Venta del Peleon, offers itself as a resting-place. ”

“ At Bielsa, it is near the bridge and is kept by Pedro Pertos: I have not slept in it, but I believe it to be clean and good. El Plan has a Posada called the Posada of the Sun (del Sol) , but it is not praised; nay, it is detested by those who speak from experience. The inn that stands or stood at the lower part of the Val d'Arazas is said to be good; that at Torla is not so much an inn as an old chief's house or manor called that of "Viu," for that is the name of the family that owns it. They treat travellers very well.
This is all that I know of the inns of the Pyrenees. ”

“ At length we arrived at the village, and at a posada, than which nothing could be more dreadful, after the day-light was gone; for beside the rudest mistress, and the dirtiest servants that can be conceived, there lay a poor Frenchman dying in the next room to us ”

“ English travellers are sometimes found grumbling because the señor who keeps a wayside posada, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the towns, does not stand, hat in hand, bowing obsequiously to the wayfarer who deigns to use the accommodation provided. ”

“ Notwithstanding, with all the combined advantages of white houses, tall towers, solitary palm trees and romantic situations, I would advise no one who is not a traveller at heart or intent upon his worldly profit to fix his residence in this primitive little Andalusian town.
We first took up our quarters at the posada, with the intention of remaining there during our stay, but were soon obliged to abandon the idea, for, though the [61] best inn in Utrera, it was most uncomfortable, and noisy beyond description. ”

“ Villa Encarnación, population 15,000 or less, opposite Posadas, is another city of commercial importance, as the junction of the railway ferry and of river transportation. Here there is a change of river boats, those of lighter draft being required for the Upper Paraná. ”

“ The Captain's house lay on the highest of these plateaux; lower down, across the creek, were the quartermaster and commissary buildings (here, too, were Lieutenant Rockdale's quarters) ; and to the left, on the other side of the men's quarters, was the guard-house—part jacal, part tent-cloth.
How could any one live here and be happy? Black and bald the earth, as far as the eye could reach; black and dingy the tents and the huts that strewed the flat; murky and dark the ridge of fog that rose on the unseen river; murky and silent the clefts in the rocks where the sun left darkness forever. ”

“ The cabin in which the families of the sailors live is also colored like a Chinese joss-house; its windows are scrupulously clean, and are hung with white embroidered curtains tied with pink ribbons. In all their spare moments the sailors, the women, and the children are washing, brushing, and scrubbing everything with the greatest care; and when their vessel makes its exit from the port, all bright and pompous like a triumphal car, they stand proudly erect on the poop and search for a mute compliment in the eyes of the people who are gathered along the canal. ”

“ The narrow entrance is not much above half a mile, when it opens and makes a basin or harbour able to receive 500 sail of ships of any size, and where they may ride with the greatest safety, even as in a mill-pond or wet dock. I had the curiosity here, with the assistance of a merchant of the town, to go out to the mouth of the haven in a boat to see the entrance, and castle or fort that commands it ”

“ Here we neither found our commander nor any of the other ships of the fleet. We waited in this port for two months and four days, and, seeing that there was no arrival, I and my consort determined to explore the coast. We sailed onwards for 260 leagues until we reached a harbour where we agreed to build a fort. We did so, and left twenty-four Christian men in it who were on board my consort, being part of the crew of the Capitana that was lost. We were in that harbour five months, building the fort, and loading our ships with brazil-wood. ”

“ As one passes along this bit of much and deeply indented coast, inland beyond which are the swelling heights of the Portsdown Hills, green-grey and desolate-looking ridges with almost an unbroken summit line, crowned and pierced by many suspected and unsuspected forts, the great naval station for which one is bound climbs up out of the sea ahead ”

“ As those ships, when laid up, are each covered over with a large wooden roof, to protect them from the effects of the weather, they appear, when seen from Portsdown Hill, which commands an excellent view of the harbour, not so much like floating castles as like immense floating barns—ample garners, which would contain more corn than the swords and cutlasses of their former gallant crews, beat into reaping-hooks, will ever cut down! ”

“ Every berth was full; so much so that our captain, with a chivalry and forgetfulness of self which deserves recording in letters of gold, gave up his own cabin to Richard and myself, that we might not be separated an hour sooner than necessity compelled us to be, and encountered the fatigue of his long duties on deck, and the discomforts and anxieties of ten days' bad weather, with no shelter but a chance berth or the saloon sofa. During that night one tremendous sea stove in the doors of the main cabin, filling the saloon and berths with water. ”

“ This would also leave an after cabin for the Master, who not infrequently made his quarters, and those of his chief officer, in the “round house,” when one existed, especially in a crowded ship.
Cabins and bunks “between decks” would provide for all of the males of the company, while the seamen, both of the crew and (some of) those in the employ of the Pilgrims—like Trevore and Ely—were no doubt housed in the fore castle. ”

“ What we propose is, that we should construct a shelter of boards four feet high in the bottom of your boat, leading from your little cabin aft right up to the bow. In this I calculate we could stow seventy men; then the peat could be piled over it, and if you entered the port somewhat late in the afternoon you could manage that it was not unladen so as to uncover the roof of our shelter before work ceased for the night. Then we could sally out, overpower the guard on the quay, make for one of the gates, master the guard there, and open it to our friends without. ”

“ Its southern side is faced in its whole length by the palace of the governor-general, a spacious and handsome quadrangular structure of stone, stuccoed and painted sky-blue, with pilasters, cornice and balustrade around its flat roof, of white.
Our chief object in going on shore was the enjoyment of a drive outside the walls. The vicinity of the Plaza furnished us with the opportunity of a choice of equipage for the purpose. Lines and groups of vehicles were standing along its sides and at the corners. ”

“ This is quite a tiny little boat. She has all our equipment, fourteen of [198] our cars. For passengers, there are ourselves, seventy-five people, and three Serbian officers, and the mother and sister of one of them, and thirty-two Serbian non-commissioned officers. They are going to our Division.
‘The cabins are most comfortable. On the saloon deck there are twenty-two very small, single cabins. And on this deck larger cabins with either three or four berths. I am on this deck in the most luxurious quarters. It is called The Commanding Officer’s Cabin (ahem) . ”

“ Yes. A two-berth cabin to yourself—and last trip we had three generals in a one-berth cabin, four colonels in a bath at once, and five common officers on top of one another in each chair at table. . . . Fact—I assure you. . . . Go in and chuck away all that upholstery—you can run about in your shirt-sleeves now, or naked if you like, so long as you wear a helmet to show you are in uniform. . . . Bye-bye—be a good boy,” and he bustled away.
Bertram thankfully took the Embarkation Officer’s advice, and cast off all impedimenta until he was clad only in khaki shirt, shorts, puttees and boots. ”