as rather a fine-looking
Spanish Mestizo, as to our plans, &c., he most good-naturedly set
off to seek a huntsman whom he recommended as a guide, leaving us in
the meantime to the society of his wife--a strapping native beauty,
although somewhat swarthy, full of good nature and the gossip of the
place. From her, Adam soon learned all about his former acquaintances,
and among others of the Capitan Tomas, his buxom wife, and pretty
daughter, who we were told was considered the beauty of the town.

After their names had been mentioned with that addition, he got
rather impatient all of a sudden for a stroll about the town; so we
started together, after paying a visit to our portmanteaus and the
still insensible Fernando, at the town-house, where my friend armed
himself with a bottle of eau de Cologne, a box of which I found that
he carried about with him for distribution among such native beauties
as he was ambitious of standing well with, for they were sure to like
this perfume, which his experience of the country taught him was seldom
procurable in such out-of-the-way places, and to a dead certainty
always procured him favour in the eyes of the unsophisticated fair,
whom he taught how to use it.

For this it was that he had hinted something about thieves and the
state of Fernando, and proposed looking in to see if the portmanteaus
were still safe at the Casa Real, so I resolved to be revenged
for the double dealing of his proposal upon seeing the top of the
Cologne bottle peeping out from his shooting-jacket pocket. I watched
a chance, and snatched it away without being noticed, determined that
the half-caste beauty whose praises he was so eloquent in during our
promenade, should not have him to thank it for at all events.

We reached the house, and were well received by the Capitan, who
pressed us to stop with him, and when he found we were engaged, invited
us to pass next day with him, which, as the beauty was looking her very
best, there was great risk of our doing, in preference to prosecuting
our pig-shooting scheme, as had been originally intended. Poor Adam was
evidently smitten by her attractions. After talking with these good
people for some time, I observed that his attention was engrossed
in watching Rita's movements, when, as the Capitan, his wife, and
myself were all standing at an open window, looking at the flowers in
his garden, and talking away, and their daughter, occupied in some
household duty, was