After we had taken our siesta, the mules were put to the _galera_, each person resumed his place, the _escopetero_ bestrode his little mountain-steed, the _mayoral_ laid in a stock of small flint-stones to hurl at the ears of his mules, and we set out once more on our journey. The country through which we passed was savage without being picturesque. We beheld nothing but bare, naked, sterile, rugged hills, stony torrent-beds, like scars made in the ground by the winter's rains, and woods of olive-trees, whose pale foliage, powdered over with dust, did not suggest the least idea of refreshing verdure. Here and there, on the gaping sides of the rocks of turf and chalk, was a solitary tuft of fennel, whitened by the heat; on the powdery road were the marks of serpents and vipers, while, over the whole, was a sky as glowing as the roof of an oven and not a gust of wind, not even so much as the slightest breath of air! The grey sand which was raised by the hoofs of the mules fell again without the least eddy to the ground. You might have made iron red-hot in the sun, which darted its rays on the cloth covering of our _galera_, in which we were ripening like melons under a glass frame. From time to time, we got out and walked a short distance, keeping in the shade projected by the body of the horse or the wagon; when we had stretched our legs somewhat, we would scramble in again, slightly crushing the children and their mother, for we could not reach our seats except by crawling on all fours under the elliptical arch formed by the tilted roof of the _galera_. By dint of crossing quagmires and ravines, and making short cuts over fields, we lost our way. Our _mayoral_, in the hope of coming into the right road again, still went on, as if he was perfectly aware where he was going, for _corsarios_ and guides will never own that they have lost themselves till they are reduced to extremities, and have taken you five or six leagues out of the right direction. I must, in justice, say, however, that nothing could be easier than to lose oneself on this fabulous road, which was scarcely marked out, and intersected every moment by deep ravines. At length we found ourselves in the midst of large fields, dotted here and there by olive-trees, with misshapen, dwarfish trunks, and frightful forms, without the slightest signs of a human habitation or a living being. Since the morning, we had met only one half-naked _muchacho_ driving before him, in a cloud of dust, half-a-dozen black pigs. Night set in, and, to augment our misfortunes, there was no moon, so that we had nothing but the uncertain light of the stars to guide us.