se you not to inquire about it--_Dosta_. . . ."
He carried a loadstone in his bosom and swallowed some of the dust of it,
and it served both for passport and for prayers. When he had to leave
Borrow he sold him a savage and vicious she ass, recommending her for the
same reason as he bought her, because "a savage and vicious beast has
generally four excellent legs."

CHAPTER XXII--"THE BIBLE IN SPAIN": STYLE

Borrow's Spanish portrait of himself was worthy of its background. Much
was required of him in a world where a high fantastical acrobatic
mountebankery was almost a matter of ceremony, where riders stand on
their heads in passing their rivals and cooks punt a casserole over their
heads to the wall behind by way of giving notice: much was required of
him and he proved worthy. He saw himself, I suppose, as a great
imaginative master of fiction sees a hero. His attitude cannot be called
vanity: it is too consistent and continuous and its effect by far too
powerful. He puts his own name into the speeches of other men in a
manner that is very rare: he does not start at the sound of _Don Jorge_.
He said to the silent archbishop: "I suppose your lordship knows who I
am? . . . I am he whom the _Manolos_ of Madrid call _Don Jorgito el
Ingles_; I am just come out of prison, whither I was sent for circulating
my Lord's Gospel in this Kingdom of Spain." He allows the archbishop to
put this celebrity on horseback: "_Vaya_! how you ride! It is dangerous
to be in your way." His horses are magnificent: "What," he asks, "what
is a missionary in the heart of Spain without a horse? Which
consideration induced me now to purchase an Arabian of high caste, which
had been brought from Algiers by an officer of the French legion. The
name of this steed, the best I believe that ever issued from the desert,
was Sidi Habismilk."

Who can forget Quesada and his two friends lording it on horseback over
the crowd, and Borrow shouting "_Viva_ _Quesada_," or forget the old Moor
of Tangier talking of horses?--

"'Good are the horses of the Moslems,' said my old friend; 'where will
you find such? They will descend rocky mountains at full speed and
neither trip nor fall; but you must be cautious with the horses of the
Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are
proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first
mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do they