PLUNDER OF A SPANISH DILIGENCE.

(_From the "Quarterly" Review, of "A Year in Spain." Unpublished._)


The author takes his seat about two in the morning in the cabriolet
or front part of a diligence from Tarragona, and gives many amusing
particulars concerning his fellow travellers, who, one after another,
all surrender themselves to slumber. Thus powerfully invited by the
examples of those near him, the lieutenant catches the drowsy infection,
and having nestled snugly into his corner, soon loses entirely the
realities of existence "in that mysterious state which Providence has
provided as a cure for every ill." In short, he is indulged with a
dream, which transports him into the midst of his own family circle
beyond the Atlantic; but from this comfortable and sentimental nap he is
soon aroused by the sudden stopping of the diligence, and a loud clamour
all about him.

There were voices without, speaking in accents of violence, and whose
idiom was not of my country. I roused myself, rubbed my eyes, and
directed them out of the windows. By the light of a lantern that blazed
from the top of the diligence, I could discover that this part of the
road was skirted by olive-trees, and that the mules, having come in
contact with some obstacle to their progress, had been thrown into
confusion, and stood huddled together, as if afraid to move, gazing upon
each other, with pricked ears and frightened aspect. A single glance to
the right-hand gave a clue to the mystery. Just beside the fore-wheel of
the diligence stood a man, dressed in that wild garb of Valencia which
I had seen for the first time in Amposta: his red cap, which flaunted