Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... XIV.--ON THE ROAD TO ZARAGOZA I I Picked up my knapsack and descended the stairs of the hotel into the hall. At once I was surrounded by waiters and porters and interpreters and boys and servants of all sorts and sizes and descriptions. I could feel their eyes all over me--concentrated, so to speak, into one intense gaze that was at once critical, expectant, and ingratiating. I could feel my measure being taken from crown to toe. For me it was a moment of anxious excitement. As I moved they moved. As I glanced they glanced. All I had in my pocket was two hundred pesetas (about six pounds). My funds had withered through gazing on the sights of Madrid. I grasped the two hundred pesetas firmly in my hand as it lay in my pocket, breathed hard, and tried to dodge. Useless. These hotel servants of sunny Spain knew a thing or two. They were before me and behind me and around me, and at one stage of the game I was afraid that they would down me and take the two hundred pesetas from me. But at last 1 escaped--escaped with only a loss of twenty-five pesetas. Here I was standing outside the hotel in the Calle de Alcala. I was slowly recovering from the scrimmage I had had with the servants who would be tipped. I was just beginning to realise that I was lucky to have got out of the hotel with any money at all. After fortifying myself with a very strong drink in the cafe next door to the hotel I again found myself in the Calle de Alcala--thinking. But in a moment I was myself again, and I turned to the right and moved slowly along--knapsack in hand. It was light, this knapsack, for I had left everything behind me in the hotel that was not absolutely necessary for me to carry. I had a long tramp before me, and the having to carry everything on my back...