We were now on the bank of the Salinas, through which we dashed, allowing our horses a taste of its yellow waters, then up the opposite bank, and away over the broad plain, which stretches in vernal beauty beyond. Our horses required no spur, were in fine condition, high spirits, never broke their gallop, and swept ahead, like a fawn to its covert. Mine belonged to the daughter of the Don, to whose hearth we were bound, and had often rattled about among these hills beneath his fair owner, whose equestrian graces and achievements might throw a fresh enchantment on the chase that had gathered to its rivalries the beauty and bravery of Old England. Another mountain stream—a dash through its foaming tide, and away again through a broad ravine, which bent its ample track to the steep hills, which threw the shadows of their waving trees over a thousand echoing caverns. Where the forests broke, the wild oats waved, like golden lakes, and mirrored the passing cloud; while the swaying pines rolled out their music on the wind, like the dirge of ocean. And now another luxuriant plain, where cattle, and horses, and sheep gambolled and grazed by thousands; and on the opposite side the white mansion of our host, crowning the headland, and glimmering through the waving shade, like the columns which consecrate Colonna. Here we alighted without weariness to ourselves or our spirited animals, though we had swept through the forty miles in three hours and a half. The señorita, who had sent me her horse, vaulted into the saddle, which I had just relinquished, and patting the noble fellow, whom she called Leopaldo, induced him to exhibit a variety of his cunning evolutions. He knew his rider as well as a Newfoundlander his mistress, or an eagle his mountain mate.