We ate liberally of the couriers' generous provision of bread, cheese,
sausage, olives and figs; well content to quench our thirst at the spring
by the shrine. Then we muffled ourselves in our cloaks, tightened the
straps of our umbrella hats, jammed them down on our heads, pulled the
brims over our faces, mounted and set off, elated, sure of ourselves, well
fed, well clad, well horsed, opulent, accredited, gay.
As couriers vary in their theories of horse-husbanding and in their
practice of riding, we had a wide choice, and elected to get every mile we
could out of these fine horses and not change until as far as possible
from Rome. We found their most natural lope and, pausing to drink and to
water them sparingly at the loneliest springs we descried, we pressed on
through or past the Towers, Pyrgos, and Castrum Novum to Centumcellae.
That was all of forty-one miles from the shrine of Ops Consiva and full
fifty from Rome, but, partly because we had to spare ourselves, as we had
not been astride of a horse since we crawled through the drain at Villa
Andivia, we so humored our horses that we arrived in a condition which the
ostler took as a matter of course, and it was then not quite noon, which
we both considered a feat of horsemanship.
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