st Christians; but they were so few that they
could make no head against those who were not; and it was not prudent to
cherish a viper in the bosom by having enemies in the house. In short it
was with just cause that we were visited with the penalty of banishment,
a mild and lenient one in the eyes of some, but to us the most terrible
that could be inflicted upon us. Wherever we are we weep for Spain; for
after all we were born there and it is our natural fatherland. Nowhere do
we find the reception our unhappy condition needs; and in Barbary and all
the parts of Africa where we counted upon being received, succoured, and
welcomed, it is there they insult and ill-treat us most. We knew not our
good fortune until we lost it; and such is the longing we almost all of
us have to return to Spain, that most of those who like myself know the
language, and there are many who do, come back to it and leave their
wives and children forsaken yonder, so great is their love for it; and
now I know by experience the meaning of the saying, sweet is the love of
one's country.

"I left our village, as I said, and went to France, but though they gave
us a kind reception there I was anxious to see all I could. I crossed
into Italy, and reached Germany, and there it seemed to me we might live
with more freedom, as the inhabitants do not pay any attention to
trifling points; everyone lives as he likes, for in most parts they enjoy
liberty of conscience. I took a house in a town near Augsburg, and then
joined these pilgrims, who are in the habit of coming to Spain in great
numbers every year to visit the shrines there, which they look upon as
their Indies and a sure and certain source of gain. They travel nearly
all over it, and there is no town out of which they do not go full up of
meat and drink, as the saying is, and with a real, at least, in money,
and they come off at the end of their travels with more than a hundred
crowns saved, which, changed into gold, they smuggle out of the kingdom
either in the hollow of their staves or in the patches of their pilgrim's
cloaks or by some device of their own, and carry to their own country in
spite of the guards at the posts and passes where they are searched. Now
my purpose is, Sancho, to carry away the treasure that I left buried,
which, as it is outside the town, I shall be able to do without risk, and
to write, or cross over from Valencia, to my daughter and wife, who I
know are at Algiers, and