TRAVELLING IN SPAIN, 848

trouble you now with none of my land journal. But some adven-
tures that happened to us in this tedious and difficult journey 1
must not omit.

When we came to Madrid, we being all of us strangers to Spain,
were willing to stay some time to see the court of Spain, and to
see what was worth observing ; but it being the latter part of the
suminer we hastened away, and set out from Madrid about the
middle of October. But when we came to the edge of Navarre,
we were alarmed at several towns on the way with an account that
so much snow was fallen on the French side of the mountains that
several travellers were obliged to come back to Pampeluna, after
having attempted at an extreme hazard to pass on.

When we came to Pampeluna itself we found it so indeed ; and
to me that had been always used to a hot climate, and indeed tu
countries where we could scarce bear any clothes on, the cold was
insufferable. Nor, indeed, was it more painful than it was sur-
prising to come but ten days before out of the Old Castile, where
the weather was not only warm but very hot, and immediately to
_fecl a wind from the Pyrenean mountains so very keen, so severely
cold, as to be intolerable, and to endanger benumbing and _perish-
ing of our fingers and toes. Poor Friday was really frightened
when he saw the mountains all covered with snow and felt cold
weather, which he had never seen or felt before in his life.

To mend the matter, when we came to Pampeluna it continued
snowing with so much violence and so long that the people said
winter was come before its time: and the roads, which were difli-
cult before, were now quite impassable ; for, in a word, the snow
lay in some places too thick for us to travel, and being not hard
frozen, as is the case in northern countries, there was no going
without being in danger of being buried alive every step. We
stayed no less than twenty days at Pampeluna; when, seeing the
winter coming on, and no likelihood of its being better, for it was
the severest winter all over Europe that had been known in the
memory of man, I proposed that we should all go away to Font-
arabia, and there take shipping for Bordeaux, which was a very
little voyage.

But while we were considering this, there came in four French