a Nueva, immediately at the foot of the hill of the Alhambra, and
here was always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics, and city
functionaries. A beetling bastion of the fortress overlooked the palace
and the public square in front of it; and on this bastion the old
governor would occasionally strut backward and forward, with his toledo
girded by his side, keeping a wary eye down upon his rival, like a hawk
reconnoitering his quarry from his nest in a dry tree.

Whenever he descended into the city it was in grand parade, on
horseback, surrounded by his guards, or in his state coach, an ancient
and unwieldy Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt leather, drawn
by eight mules, with running footmen, outriders, and lackeys, on which
occasions he flattered himself he impressed every beholder with awe and
admiration as vicegerent of the king, though the wits of Granada were
apt to sneer at his petty parade, and, in allusion to the vagrant
character of his subjects, to greet him with the appellation of "the
king of the beggars."

One of the most fruitful sources of dispute between these two doughty
rivals was the right claimed by the governor to have all things passed
free of duty through the city, that were intended for the use of himself
or his garrison. By degrees, this privilege had given rise to extensive
smuggling. A nest of contrabandistas[22-4] took up their abode in the
hovels of the fortress and the numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove
a thriving business under the connivance of the soldiers of the
garrison.

The vigilance of the captain-general was aroused. He consulted his legal
adviser and factotum, a shrewd, meddlesome Escribano or notary, who
rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the old potentate of the
Alhambra, and involving him in a maze of legal subtilities. He advised
the captain-general to insist upon the right of examining every convoy
passing through the gates of his city, and he penned a long letter for
him, in vindication of the right. Governor Manco was a straightforward,
cut-and-thrust old soldier, who hated an Escribano worse than the devil,
and this one in particular, worse than all other Escribanoes.

"What!" said he, curling up his mustachios fiercely, "does the
captain-general set this man of the pen to practice confusions upon me?
I'll let him see that an old soldier is not to be baffled by
schoolcraft."

He seized his pen, and scrawled a short letter in a crabbed hand,