At last, when they had climbed that precipitous spur of the Pyrenees which forms the northern wall of Alava; after they had stopped once to harness an extra locomotive, and stopped again to unharness it; after they had descended again, ascended again and once more descended--this last time for what seemed but a little way--the train came to the end of this stage of Cartaret's journey. He alighted on a smoky platform only partially illuminated by more smoky lamps and had himself driven to the hotel that the first accessible cabby recommended. Vitoria is a curious city of nearly 150,000 inhabitants, situated on a hill overlooking the Plain of Alava. Cartaret, waking with the sun, could see from his window the Campillo, the oldest portion of the town, crowning the hill-crest, an almost deserted jumble of ruined walls and ancient towers, surrounded by public-gardens and topped by the twelfth-century Cathedral of St. Mary, the effect of its Gothic arches sadly lessened by ugly modern additions to the pile. Below, the Vitoria Antigua clung to the hillside, a maze of narrow, twisting streets; and still lower lay the new town, a place of wide thoroughfares and shady walks, among which was Cartaret's hotel. He breakfasted early and, having no leisure for sight-seeing, asked his way to the city's administrative-offices. He passed rows of hardware-factories, wine and wool warehouses, paper-mills and tanneries, wide yards in which rows of earthenware lay drying, and plazas where the horse and mule trade flourished, and so came at last to the arcaded market-place opposite which was the building that he was in search of; the offices were not yet open for the day. He sat down to wait at a table under an awning and before a café that faced the market. The market was full of country-folk, men and women, all of great height and splendid physique, and Cartaret saw at once that the latter wore the same sort of peculiar head-dress that, in Paris, had distinguished Chitta. A loquacious waiter, wholly unintelligible, was accosting him. Cartaret, guessing that he was expected to pay for his chair with an order for drink, made signs to fit that conjecture, and the waiter brought him a flask of the native _chacoli_. It was a poor wine, and Cartaret did not care for it, but he sat on, pretending to, watching the white municipal building and looking, from time to time, at the farmers from the market who passed into the café and out of it.