ut for Madrid. For the first twenty leagues the travelling
was easy enough, and the roads as good as any in France. These roads did
honour to the memory of M. de Gages, who had administered Navarre after
the Italian war, and had, as I was assured, made the road at his own
expense. Twenty years earlier I had been arrested by this famous general;
but he had established a claim on posterity greater than any of his
victories. These laurels were dyed in blood, but the maker of a good road
is a solid benefactor of all posterity.

In time this road came to an end, and thenceforth it would be incorrect
to say that the roads were bad, for, to tell the truth, there were no
roads at all. There were steep ascents and violent descents, but no
traces of carriage wheels, and so it is throughout the whole of Old
Castile. There are no good inns, only miserable dens scarce good enough
for the muleteers, who make their beds beside their animals. Signor or
rather Senor Andrea tried to choose the least wretched inns for me, and
after having provided for the mules he would go round the entire village
to get something for me to eat. The landlord would not stir; he shewed me
a room where I could sleep if I liked, containing a fire-place, in which
I could light a fire if I thought fit, but as to procuring firewood or
provisions, he left that all to me. Wretched Spain!

The sum asked for a night's accommodation was less than a farmer would
ask in France or Germany for leave to sleep in his barn; but there was
always an extra charge of a 'pizetta por el ruido'. The pizetta is worth
four reals; about twenty-one French sous.

The landlord smoked his paper cigarette nonchalantly enough, blowing
clouds of smoke into the air with immense dignity. To him poverty was as
good as riches; his wants were small, and his means sufficed for them. In
no country in Europe do the lower orders live so contentedly on a very
little as in Spain. Two ounces of white bread, a handful of roast
chestnuts or acorns (called bellotas in Spanish) suffice to keep a
Spaniard for a day. It is his glory to say when a stranger is departing
from his abode,--

"I have not given myself any trouble in waiting on him."

This proceeds in part from idleness and in part from Castilian pride. A
Castilian should not lower himself, they say, by attending on a Gavacho,
by which name the Spaniards know the French, and, indeed, all foreigners.
It is not so offensive as the Turkish appellat