On the road from Miranda to Pancorbo there is a striking defile between massive limestone cliffs and rocks, through which the Madrid Railway is being constructed with no little difficulty, and where the road is carried up, until, at its summit, we found ourselves at the commencement of the arid, treeless, dusty, and eminently miserable plain of Castile, whilst we groaned not a little at the slow pace at which the ten or twelve horses and mules that drew us got over the ground. These Spanish diligences are certainly most amusing for a time, and thenceforward most wearying. They generally have a team of ten or twelve animals, mostly mules. The driver has a short whip and reins for the wheelers only; a boy, the _adalantero_, rides the leaders as postilion, and with a power of endurance which deserves record, the same boy having ridden with us all the way from San Sebastian to Burgos--twenty-five hours, with a halt of one hour only at Vitoria. The conductor, or _mayoral_, sits with the driver, and the two spend half their time in getting down from the box, rushing to the head of one of the mules, belabouring him heartily for two or three minutes till the whole train is in a mad gallop, and then climbing to the box to indulge in a succession of wild shrieks until the poor beasts have fallen again into their usual walk, when the performance is repeated. I believe that for a day and a half our _mayoral_ never slept a wink, and spent something like a fourth of his time running with the mules: though I am bound to say that subsequent experience has convinced me that he was exceptionally lively and wakeful, for elsewhere, in travelling by night, I have generally found that the mules become their own masters after dark, walking or standing still as seemeth them best, and seldom getting over much more than half the ground they travel in the same number of hours of daylight. A few miles before our arrival at Burgos, we caught the first sight of the three spires of the cathedral; and presently the whole mass stood out grandly, surmounted by the Castle hill on the right. One or two villages with large churches of little interest were passed, the great Carthusian Convent of Miraflores was seen on the left, and then, passing a short suburb, we stopped at the Fonda de la Rafaela; and after an hour spent in recovery from dust, dirt, and horrid hunger, betook ourselves to the famous Cathedral, with no little anxiety as to the result of this first day of ecclesiologizing in Spain.