akfast.

We halted at a queer old inn, more like a Turkish khan than a Christian
hostlery. It was kept by a fat landlady, who made us an olla of kid and
garlic, which, with some coarse bread and the red Malaga wine, soon took
off the sharp edge of our mountain appetites. While I was washing my hands
at a well in the court-yard, the _mozo_ noticed the pilgrim-seal of
Jerusalem, which is stamped indelibly on my left arm. His admiration and
reverence were so great that he called the fat landlady, who, on learning
that it had been made in Jerusalem, and that I had visited the Holy
Sepulchre, summoned her children to see it. "Here, my children!" she said;
"cross yourselves, kneel down, and kiss this holy seal; for, as long as
you live, you may never see the like of it again." Thus I, a Protestant
heretic, became a Catholic shrine. The children knelt and kissed my arm
with touching simplicity; and the seal will henceforth be more sacred to
me than ever.

The remaining twenty miles or more of the road to Malaga follow the line
of the coast, passing headlands crowned by the _atalayas_, or
watch-towers, of the Moors. It is a new road, and practicable for
carriages, so that, for Spain, it may be considered an important
achievement. The late rains have, however, already undermined it in a
number of places. Here, as among the mountains, we met crowds of
muleteers, all of whom greeted me with: "_Vaya usted con Dios,
caballero_!"--("May you go with God, cavalier!") By this time, all my
forgotten Spanish had come back again, and a little experience of the
simple ways of the people made me quite at home among them. In almost
every instance, I was treated precisely as a Spaniard would have been,
and less annoyed by the curiosity of the natives than I have been in
Germany, and even America.

We were still two leagues from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the
coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies
of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping
fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways
on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he
trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little
beast, Jose and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into the
following monologue, addressed to the donkey: "Who laughs at this
_burrico_? Who says he's not fine gold from head to foot? What is it that
he