Riding light, with the "irreducible minimum" stowed in the saddle-bags, one may traverse Spain from end to end. But it is only a hasty and superficial view that is thus obtainable, and except for those who love roughing it for roughness' sake, even the freedom of the saddle presents grave drawbacks in a land where none live in the country and none travel off stated tracks. In the _campo_, nothing--neither food for man nor beast--can be obtained, and no provision exists for travellers where travellers never come. The little rural hostelry of northern lands has no place; there is instead a _venta_ or _posada_ which may too often be likened to a stable for beasts with an extra stall for their riders. It is a characteristic of pastoral countries everywhere that their rude inhabitants discriminate little between the needs of man and beast. But even towns of quite considerable size--when far removed from the track--are totally devoid of inns in our sense. Inns are not needed. The few Spanish travellers who, greatly daring, venture so far afield, usually bespeak beforehand the hospitality of some local friend or acquaintance. [Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE ROCK-THRUSH (_Petrocincla saxatilis_) A beautiful spring-migrant to the highest sierras. Colours of male: opal, orange, and black, with a white "mirror" in centre of back. Female, yellow-brown barred with black.] Incidentally it may be added that a visit to one of these out-of-the-world cities--asleep most of them for the last few centuries--is a pleasing and restful change amidst the racket of exploration. One breathes a mediæval atmosphere and marvels at the revelation, enjoying prehistoric peeps in lost cities replete for the antiquary with historic memorial and long-forgotten lore. No one cares. Yet in those bygone days of Spain's world-power these somnolent spots produced the right stuff,--a minority, no doubt, belonged to the type satirised by Cervantes,--but many more strong in mind as in muscle, who went forth, knights-errant, Paladins and Crusaders, to conquer and to shape the course of history. Is the old spirit extinct? Our own impression is that the material is there all right ready to spring to life like the stones of Deucalion, so soon as Spain shall have shaken off her incubus of lethargy and the tyranny that clogs the wheels of progress. Nor need the interval be long. * * * * *