The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain: Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville.Wells, Nathaniel Armstrong
Islamic
The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain: Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville.
This _dénouement_ of the adventures of the first carriage rendered a
long halt necessary; during which, the postilion returned to Madrid on a
mule, and brought us out a second. This proceeding occupied four hours,
during which some entered a neighbouring _venta_, others remained on the
road, seated on heaps of stones, and all breakfasted on what provisions
they had brought with them, or could procure at the said _venta_. The
sight of the vehicle that now approached, would have been cheaply bought
at the price of twenty up-sets. Don Quixote would have charged it, had
such an apparition suddenly presented itself to his view. It was called
a phaeton, but bore no sort of resemblance to the open carriage known in
England by that name. Its form was remarkable by its length being out of
all proportion to its width,--so much so as to require three
widely-separated windows on each side. These were irregularly placed,
instead of being alike on the two sides, for the door appeared to have
been forgotten until after the completion of the fabric, and to have
taken subsequently the place of a window; which window--pursuant to a
praiseworthy sense of justice--was provided for at the expense of a
portion of deal board, and some uniformity.
The machine possessed, nevertheless, allowing for its rather exaggerated
length, somewhat of the form of an ancient landau; but the roof
describing a semicircle, gave it the appearance of having been placed
upside down by mistake, in lowering it on to the wheels. Then, with
regard to these wheels, they certainly had nothing very extraordinary
about their appearance, when motionless; but, on being subjected to a
forward or backward impulse, they assumed, respectively, and
independently of each other, such a zigzag movement, as would belong to
a rotatory, locomotive pendulum, should the progress of mechanics ever
attain to so complicated a discovery. Indeed, the machine, in general,
appeared desirous of avoiding the monotony attendant on a
straight-forward movement; the body of the monster, from the groans,
sighs, screams, and other various sounds which accompanied its heaving,
pitching, and rolling exertions, appearing to belong to some unwieldy
and agonised mammoth and to move by its own laborious efforts, instead
of being indebted for its progress to the half-dozen quadrupeds hooked
to its front projections.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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