broad smile in each corner, and
which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours
together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already
been married eight years, and his only trouble was a debt of twenty-four
dollars, which the illness of his wife had caused him. This money was
owing to the pawnbroker, who kept his best clothes in pledge until he
could pay it. "Senor," said he, "if I had ten million dollars, I would
rather give them all away than have a sick wife." He had a brother in
Puerto Principe, Cuba, who sent over money enough to pay the rent of the
house, but he found that children were a great expense. "It is most
astonishing," he said, "how much children can eat. From morning till
night, the bread is never out of their mouths."

Jose has recently been travelling with some Spaniards, one of whom made
him pay two dollars for an umbrella which was lost on the road. This
umbrella is a thorn in his side. At every venta where we stop, the story
is repeated, and he is not sparing of his maledictions. The ghost of that
umbrella is continually raised, and it will be a long time before he can
shut it. "One reason why I like to travel with foreign Senors," said he to
me, "is, that when I lose anything, they never make me pay for it." "For
all that," I answered, "take care you don't lose my umbrella: it cost
three dollars." Since then, nothing can exceed Jose's attention to that
article. He is at his wit's end how to secure it best. It appears
sometimes before, sometimes behind him, lashed to the saddle with
innumerable cords; now he sticks it into the alforja, now carries it in
his hand, and I verily believe that he sleeps with it in his arms. Every
evening, as he tells his story to the muleteers, around the kitchen fire,
he always winds up by triumphantly appealing to me with: "Well, Senor,
have I lost _your_ umbrella yet?"

Our bargain is that I shall feed him on the way, and as we travel in the
primitive style of the country, we always sit down together to the same
dish. To his supervision, the olla is often indebted for an additional
flavor, and no "thorough-bred" gentleman could behave at table with more
ease and propriety. He is as moderate as a Bedouin in his wants, and never
touches the burning aguardiente which the muleteers are accustomed to
drink. I asked him the reason of this. "I drink wine. Senor," he replied,
"because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but