Night was drawing on. We begin to ascend the mountains behind Malaga. The city lies at their feet, all glorious in the golden light of a setting sun. The bay is a lake of loveliness; and the sea, unbounded, stretches off under the southern sky. Orchards of olives, always green, and hills that are vineyards in the season of grapes, and orange-trees, are around us,—evidence of a rich and fertile country. Yet every half mile or so an armed patrol guards the road to make it safe for travellers, and we have two or three on the top of the diligence with their guns loaded to give a welcome to any “gentleman of the road” who might be disposed to make free with unsuspecting travellers. And so, with the excitement of the novel mode of transportation, and listening with ears erect to the tales of robbers with which Antanazio beguiled the mortal hours, we passed a long and wretched night, winding among craggy mountains on the verge of precipices, and crossing deep ravines.
It was three o’clock in the morning when we reached Loja, where we were to stop for refreshments! out of the _diligence_ tumbled a miserable set of people, sleepy but sleepless, cross and hungry, and made a general rush to the hostelry—by courtesy called an inn. Nobody was up, but in the course of ten or fifteen minutes a dirty old man brought in a pot of chocolate and put a plate of cakes in the middle of a table which had been spread with a cloth overnight. I noticed little black spots around on the cloth, and putting my finger at one of them, away hopped a flea, and a flock of them were soon in motion. The chocolate was good, and the fleas were stimulating. In twenty minutes we were caged again, and, with fresh teams and good spirits, set off for Granada.
About six o’clock in the morning we were passing through Santa Fé,—a large town—in the streets of which hundreds of men and women were seen standing, about to march off in gangs to distant fields to work. The inhabitants do not live in scattered houses over the country,—here and there a farmer’s cottage, as with us,—but, dwelling for safety in villages, they must go miles and miles away to and from their fields of daily labor. This Santa Fé has a history. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella while laying siege to Granada, and here Columbus came and successfully made his plea for their royal favor and help to go out into the ocean in search of a new world. He found it that same year. Granada fell in 1492, and the last of the Moorish strongholds yielded to Spanish power.