At the wretched venta to which the guide conducted me, nothing could be had to eat, excepting a little cold fish, which had been stewed with oil and garlick. I need scarcely say, there were no knives or forks; these are luxuries rarely to be met with in a Spanish venta. Every Spaniard is provided with his own clasp knife; and as for forks, they can be dispensed with: a traveller in Spain will therefore do well to provide himself with these necessaries. There is one comfort, however, that can, with few exceptions, be always had, even in the worst venta,--good wine; very different, both in flavour and strength, from the wretched beverage generally set before one in the French _auberge_. And this was the only comfort to be got at the venta at Tariffa; for sleep was out of the question, in a bed that had long been in the undisturbed possession of other living creatures. Next morning, the mistress of the house demanded two dollars for her accommodations. When a charge is exorbitant in Spain, less will always be accepted; and one dollar seemed to me quite sufficient payment for a bottle of wine that probably cost a real, and a bed that was already occupied. Next morning about sunrise, I gladly mounted my horse; and without entering Tariffa we skirted the walls, and struck into the road to Algesiras. This is one of the most charming rides I have seen in any part of Spain: it is a mountain road, abounding in the finest mountain prospects; sometimes climbing to a great elevation, and sometimes descending into deep valleys, and now and then disclosing magnificent views over the sea. The coast of great part of Andalusia and of Granada, is of a curious configuration: an infinite succession of conical hills, rising one above another, decline backward from the sea, forming altogether an elevated chain of mountains, from three thousand to five thousand feet in height; the road, therefore, which winds among these, necessarily conducts the traveller to never ending variety of prospect; and this variety I fully enjoyed for the first time, in travelling between Tariffa and Algesiras. At the highest point which the road traversed, the view might be called sublime: it looked down into the sea, which seemed like a majestic river flowing between gigantic mountains; one of its banks being the mountain below me, which appeared to dip into the water--the other, the Barbary coast, stretching away in bold outline, and forming, directly opposite, that high and frowning promontory, which is the southern boundary of the Streights of Gibraltar.