Our country ears were deafened.

Still our eyes had leisure to take in the tall houses with their high-pitched roofs, and here and there a tower built into the wall; the quaint churches, and the groups of townsfolk--sullen fellows some of them with a fierce gleam in their eyes--who, standing in the mouths of reeking alleys, watched us go by.
But presently we had to stop.

A crowd had gathered to watch a little cavalcade of six gentlemen pass across our path.

They were riding two and two, lounging in their saddles and chattering to one another, disdainfully unconscious of the people about them, or the remarks they excited.

Their graceful bearing and the richness of their dress and equipment surpassed anything I had ever seen.