one's way occasions much fatigue. To do justice to the inhabitants, an
almost universal cleanliness pervades the town,--an excellence the
attainment of which is not easy in a city so constructed, and which
gives a favourable impression of the population. It is one of the towns
in which is proved the possibility of carrying on a successful war
against the vermin for which the Peninsula has acquired so bad a
reputation, by means of cleanliness maintained in the houses.

In the house I inhabited on my arrival, I had suspected for some days an
unusual neglect in the duties of the housemaid, to whose department it
belonged to sweep the _esteras_ or matting, which serve for carpets,
from the circumstance of my having been visited by one or two unwelcome
tormentors. I ventured a gentle remonstrance to the _ama_ (landlady),
stating my reasons for the suspicion I entertained. It happened that on
the previous day I had mentioned my having been shown over the
Archbishop's palace. This she had not forgotten; for with a superb
coolness, scarcely to be met with out of Spain, she replied, "Fleas! oh,
no! sir! we have none here,--you must have brought them with you from
the Palace." Satisfied, however, with having maintained her dignity of
landlady, she took care to have the nuisance removed.

This _ama_, as may be already judged, was a curiosity. In the first
place, she was a dwarf. The Spaniards are not, generally speaking, a
more diminutive race than the other inhabitants of Southern Europe: but
when a Spaniard, especially a woman, takes it into her head to be small,
they go beyond other nations. Nowhere are seen such prodigies of
exiguity. The lady was, moreover, deformed, one of her legs describing a
triangle, which compelled her in walking to imitate the sidelong
progress of a crab. Possessed of these peculiarities she had attained,
as spinster, that very uncertain age called by some "certain," but
agreed by all to be nearer the end than the commencement of life.

Although not an exception, with regard to temper, to the generality of
those whose fate it is to endure such a complication of ills, she
nevertheless on frequent occasions gave way to much amiability, and
especially to much volubility of discourse. She was not without a tinge
of sentimentality; and when seated, fan in hand, and the _mantilla
puesta_, on one of the chairs shorn of almost their entire legs, which
were to be found in all parts of the house,--she made by