inner room, where he had
left his family visibly at their _almuerzo;_ and then we were desolated
together that he should only have Cordoveses that were black. But
passing a _patio_ where there was a poinsettia in brilliant bloom
against the wall, we found ourselves in a variety store where there were
Cordoveses of all colors; and we chose one of the right brown, with the
picture of a beautiful Spanish girl, wearing a pink shawl, inside the
crown which was fluted round in green and red ribbon. Seven pesetas was
the monstrous asking price, but we beat it down to five and a half,
and then came a trying moment: we could not carry a Cordovese in
tissue-paper through the streets of Tarifa, but could we ask our guide,
who was also our armed escort, to carry it? He simplified the situation
by taking it himself and bearing it back to the _fonda_ as proudly as
if he had not also worn a sword at his side; and we parted there in a
kindness which I should like to think he shared equally with us.

He was practically the last of those Spaniards who were always
winning my heart (save in the bank at Valladolid where they must
have misunderstood me), and whom I remember with tenderness for their
courtesy and amiability. In little things and large, I found the
Spaniards everywhere what I heard a Piedmontese commercial traveler say
of them in Venice fifty years ago: "They are the honestest people in
Europe." In Italy I never began to see the cruelty to animals which
English tourists report, and in Spain I saw none at all. If the
reader asks how with this gentleness, this civility and integrity,
the Spaniards have contrived to build up their repute for cruelty,
treachery, mendacity, and every atrocity; how with their love of
bull-feasts and the suffering to man and brute which these involve, they
should yet seem so kind to both, I answer frankly, I do not know. I do
not know how the Americans are reputed good and just and law-abiding,
although they often shoot one another, and upon mere suspicion rather
often burn negroes alive.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Familiar Spanish Travels, by W. D. Howells

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR SPANISH TRAVELS ***

***** This file should be named 7430.txt or 7430.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/3/7430/

Produced by Eric Eldred

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the ol