to the account of a bull-fight on the previous day, bursting
into a little cry of surprise and admiration on hearing that the
_matador_ had been caught and tossed. Others lay by a pillar playing
draughts for matches, while half a dozen more eagerly watched, giving
unsolicited advice with much gesticulation. The draught-board consisted
of little squares drawn on the pavement with chalk, and the pieces were
scraps of white and yellow paper. One man sat cross-legged by a column
busily rolling cigarettes; he had piles of them by his side arranged in
packets, which he sold at one penny each; it was certainly an illegal
offence, because the sale of tobacco is a government monopoly, but if
you cannot break the laws in prison where can you break them? Others
occupied themselves by making baskets or nets. But the majority did
nothing at all, standing about, sitting when they could, with the
eternal cigarette between their lips; and the more energetic watched the
blue smoke curl into the air. Altogether a very happy family!

Nor did they seem really very criminal, more especially as they wore no
prison uniform, but their own clothes. I saw no difference between them
and the people I met casually in the street. They were just very
ordinary citizens, countrymen smelling of the soil, labouring men,
artisans. Their misfortune had been only to make too free a use of their
long curved knives or to be discovered taking something over which
another had prior claims. But in Andalusia every one is potentially as
criminal, which is the same as saying that these jail-birds were
estimable persons whom an unkind fate and a mistaken idea of justice had
separated for a little while from their wives and families.

I saw two only whose aspect was distinctly vicious. One was a tall
fellow with shifty eyes, a hard thin mouth, a cruel smile, and his face
was really horrible. I asked the doctor why he was there. Don Felipe,
without speaking, made the peculiar motion of the fingers which
signifies robbery, and the man seeing him repeated it with a leer. I
have seldom seen a face that was so utterly repellent, so depraved and
wicked: I could not get it out of my head, and for a long time saw
before me the crafty eyes and the grinning mouth. Obviously the man was
a criminal born who would start thieving as soon as he was out of
prison, hopelessly and utterly corrupt. But it was curious that his
character should be marked so plainly on his face; it was a