We were now on level ground, being upon the very top of one of the highest mountains in Galicia.  This level continued for about a league, when we began to descend.  Before we had crossed the plain, which was overgrown with furze and brushwood, we came suddenly upon half a dozen fellows armed with muskets and wearing a tattered uniform.  We at first supposed them to be banditti:  they were, however, only a party of soldiers who had been detached from the station we had just quitted to escort one of the provincial posts or couriers.  They were clamorous for cigars, but offered us no farther incivility.  Having no cigars to bestow, I gave them in lieu thereof a small piece of silver.  Two of the worst looking were very eager to be permitted to escort us to Nogales, the village where we proposed to spend the night.  “By no means permit them, mon maitre,” said Antonio, “they are two famous assassins of my acquaintance; I have known them at Madrid:  in the first ravine they will shoot and plunder us.”  I therefore civilly declined their offer and departed.  “You seem to be acquainted with all the cut-throats in Galicia,” said I to Antonio, as we descended the hill.

“With respect to those two fellows,” he replied, “I knew them when I lived as cook in the family of General Q-, who is a Gallegan:  they were sworn friends of the repostero.  All the Gallegans in Madrid know each other, whether high or low makes no difference; there, at least, they are all good friends, and assist each other on all imaginable occasions; and if there be a Gallegan domestic in a house, the kitchen is sure to be filled with his countrymen, as the cook frequently knows to his cost, for they generally contrive to eat up any little perquisites which he may have reserved for himself and family.”

Somewhat less than half way down the mountain we reached a small village.  On observing a blacksmith’s shop, we stopped, in the faint hope of finding a shoe for the horse, who, for want of one, was rapidly becoming lame.  To our great joy we found that the smith was in possession of one single horse-shoe, which some time previously he had found upon the way.  This, after undergoing much hammering and alteration, was pronounced by the Gallegan vulcan to be capable of serving in lieu of a better; whereupon we again mounted, and slowly continued our descent.

Shortly ere sunset we arrived at Nogales, a hamlet situate in a narrow valley at the foot of the mountain, in traversing which we had spent the day.  Nothing could be more picturesque than the appearance of this spot:  steep hills, thickly clad with groves and forests of chestnuts, surrounded it on every side; the village itself was almost embowered in trees, and close beside it ran a purling brook.  Here we found a tolerably large and commodious posada.