In the first two
hours of the six to Burgos we ran through lovely valleys held in the
embrace of gentle hills, where the fields of Indian corn were varied by
groves of chestnut trees, where we could see the burrs gaping on their
stems. The blades and tassels of the corn had been stripped away,
leaving the ripe ears a-tilt at the top of the stalks, which looked like
cranes standing on one leg with their heads slanted in pensive
contemplation. There were no vineyards, but orchards aplenty near the
farmhouses, and all about there were other trees pollarded to the quick
and tufted with mistletoe, not only the stout oaks, but the slim poplars
trimmed up into tall plumes like the poplars in southern France. The
houses, when they did not stand apart like our own farmhouses, gathered
into gray-brown villages around some high-shouldered church with a
bell-tower in front or at one corner of the fagade. In most of the
larger houses an economy of the sun's heat, the only heat recognized in
the winter of southern countries, was practised by glassing in the
balconies that stretched quite across their fronts and kept the cold
from at least one story. It gave them a very cheery look, and must have
made them livable at least in the daytime.
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