along the hills on the right of the stream.  We overtook a few muleteers, who were tempted out by the fine weather, and before long the correo, or mail-rider from Ronda to San Roque, joined us.  After eight miles more of toilsome travel we reached the valley of the Guadiaro.  The river was not more than twenty yards wide, flowing with a deep, strong current, between high banks.  Two ropes were stretched across, and a large, clumsy boat was moored to the shore.  We called to the ferrymen, but they hesitated, saying that nobody had yet been able to cross.  However, we all got in, with our horses, and two of the men, with much reluctance, drew us over.  The current was very powerful, although the river had fallen a little during the night, but we reached the opposite bank without accident.

We had still another river, the Guargante, to pass, but we were cheered by some peasants whom we met, with the news that the ferry-boat had resumed operations.  After this current lay behind us, and there was now nothing but firm land all the way to Gibraltar, Jose declared with much earnestness that he was quite as glad, for my sake, as if somebody had given him a million of dollars.  Our horses, too, seemed to feel that something had been achieved, and showed such a fresh spirit that we loosened the reins and let them gallop to their hearts’ content over the green meadows.  The mountains were now behind us, and the Moorish castle of Gaucin crested a peak blue with the distance.  Over hills covered with broom and heather in blossom, and through hollows grown with oleander, arbutus and the mastic shrub, we rode to the cork-wood forests of San Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers.  The barking of dogs, the cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest of a hill.  I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of “The Rock” loomed in the distance.

At San Roque, which occupies the summit of a conical hill, about half-way between Gibraltar and Algeciras, the landlord left us, and immediately started on his return.  Having now exchanged the rugged bridle-paths of Ronda for a smooth carriage-road, Jose and I dashed on at full gallop, to the end of our journey.  We were both bespattered with mud from head to foot, and our jackets and sombreros had lost something of their spruce air.  We met a great many ruddy, cleanly-shaven Englishmen, who reined up on one side to let us pass, with a look of wonder at our Andalusian impudence.  Nothing diverted Jose more than to see one of these Englishmen rising in his stirrups, as he went by on a trot.  “Look, look, Senor!” he exclaimed; “did you ever see the like?” and then broke into a fresh explosion of laughter.  Passing the Spanish Lines, which stretch across the