'If any thing will alleviate the little miseries of a two days' diligence-journey, it is having as pretty, good-natured, and cosmopolitan a little widow for your opposite travelling companion, as I had from Cordova on the Guadalquivir, to Madrid on the Manzanares. Tumbling into the 'interior' of a diligence at two o'clock of a June morning after a few hours spent in a vain attempt to sleep, rendered vain and profane by a legion of those _tirailleurs du diable_, long-horned mosquitoes, one is by no means as serene in temper as one should be. The writer was savage that morning; and not until the _mayoral_ (conductor) had brought a light to see if the passengers were all properly packed in, revealing the cheerful little face of a pretty woman opposite to him, did his good nature shine out as a patent reflector and dissipate the fog of discontent.
''A long journey before us: let us make ourselves comfortable,' said the lady, the departing _mayoral_ with light just enabling me to see that there was a smile on her face. Then there was a shaking of black silk skirts, _Gracias a Dios!_ there were no steel or whalebone petticoats on her blessed form; two little feet sought refuge on my side; two good-sized ones searched for an asylum on her side the diligence; and behold, we were disposed to be friends for life. I don't know whether TUPPER, in his 'Proverbial Philosophy,' mentions under the head of 'Friendship' that it is 'a travelling shawl,' but in his next edition he'd better do it, you know, BECAUSE IT IS! At least that morning, when I spread mine over my legs, and extended the courtesy to the limbs (_Lingua Americana_) of the fair widow, she accepted the woollen with a kind acknowledgment that made me feel blessedly pleased with myself and with her. The bells of the eight mules pulling the diligence were jingling; the postillion on the right leader had settled himself in his saddle; the _arriero_ had hold of the reins; the _mayoral_ jumped into his seat in the Imperial; and the _zugal_, holding his calañes hat tight on his head, sprung out of the door of the diligence-office, uttering fearful yells and cracking his whip with the ferocity of a mad monkey; when--creak, bang, slide, slip! and we were launched on our journey to Madrid.