After crossing the plains of La Mancha we reach the Sierra Morena range of mountains, and are to work our way through and over them. The daring of the engineers who would push a road into such recesses is prodigious. The precipices are frightful. Peaks of mountains start up suddenly, and seem to pierce the clouds. Rocks of gigantic grandeur rise abruptly, and sometimes stand apart in solitary dignity. Deep gorges are to be spanned by the iron road. Long and frequent galleries lead, in gloomy state, through the bowels of the mountains. The road is sublime, if safe, and it appears to be well made. We come to a bridge under repairs. All the passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not, he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer than ours. They err generally on the safe side, provoking us by their delays, but very rarely breaking our necks. And, on the whole, their way of doing things is the best. At Manjibar we stopped for lunch, or breakfast, or dinner, whichsoever any one might call it. It was hard to say where or when our last meal was, and what was the name of this. Still more difficult was it to ascertain the names of the dishes set before us. One dish _had been_ chicken, but in some advanced stage of its post-mortem existence it had been consigned to a bath of pickle, and was now offered for our consumption. A single taste sufficed. It probably returned to its brine, to wait a bolder customer, with a better appetite. Then they gave us a stew. I suggested that it was hare. My companion thought it a cat. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and turned away. The price of this meal that we tried in vain to eat, was the same as the table-d’hôte dinner at many hotels in Paris,—four francs.