h a hole in the roof, or rather hung in a
cloud some feet above the soil. Along the walls five or six mule rugs
were spread on the floor. These were the travellers' beds. Twenty paces
from the house, or rather from the solitary apartment which I have just
described, stood a sort of shed, that served for a stable.

The only inhabitants of this delightful dwelling visible at the moment,
at all events, were an old woman, and a little girl of ten or twelve
years old, both of them as black as soot, and dressed in loathsome rags.
"Here's the sole remnant of the ancient populations of Munda Boetica,"
said I to myself. "O Caesar! O Sextus Pompeius, if you were to revisit
this earth how astounded you would be!"

When the old woman saw my travelling companion an exclamation of
surprise escaped her. "Ah! Senor Don Jose!" she cried.

Don Jose frowned and lifted his hand with a gesture of authority that
forthwith silenced the old dame.

I turned to my guide and gave him to understand, by a sign that no one
else perceived, that I knew all about the man in whose company I was
about to spend the night. Our supper was better than I expected. On
a little table, only a foot high, we were served with an old rooster,
fricasseed with rice and numerous peppers, then more peppers in oil,
and finally a _gaspacho_--a sort of salad made of peppers. These three
highly spiced dishes involved our frequent recourse to a goatskin filled
with Montella wine, which struck us as being delicious.

After our meal was over, I caught sight of a mandolin hanging up against
the wall--in Spain you see mandolins in every corner--and I asked the
little girl, who had been waiting on us, if she knew how to play it.

"No," she replied. "But Don Jose does play well!"

"Do me the kindness to sing me something," I said to him, "I'm
passionately fond of your national music."

"I can't refuse to do anything for such a charming gentleman, who gives
me such excellent cigars," responded Don Jose gaily, and having made
the child give him the mandolin, he sang to his own accompaniment. His
voice, though rough, was pleasing, the air he sang was strange and sad.
As to the words, I could not understand a single one of them.

"If I am not mistaken," said I, "that's not a Spanish air you have just
been singing. It's like the _zorzicos_ I've heard in the Provinces,* and
the words must be in the Basque language."

* The _privileged Provinces_, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and