very often to beggars--perhaps from superstitious motives, thinking
their prayers will be of service, or fearing the evil eye, which may
punish a refusal. Begging is quite an honourable profession in Spain;
mendicants are charitably termed the poor, and not besmirched, as in
England, with an opprobrious name.

I have never seen so many beggars as in Andalusia; at every church door
there will be a dozen, and they stand or sit at each street corner,
halt, lame and blind. Every possible deformity is paraded to arouse
charity. Some look as though their eyes had been torn out, and they
glare at you with horrible bleeding sockets; most indeed are blind, and
you seldom fail to hear their monotonous cry, sometimes naming the
saint's day to attract particular persons: 'Alms for the love of God,
for a poor blind man on this the day of St. John!' They stand from
morning till night, motionless, with hand extended, repeating the words
as the sound of footsteps tells them some one is approaching; and then,
as a coin is put in their hands, say gracefully: '_Dios se lo pagara!_
God will repay you.'

In Spain you do not pass silently when a beggar demands alms, but pray
his mercy for God's love to excuse you: '_Perdone Usted por el amor de
Dios!_' Or else you beseech God to protect him: '_Dios le ampare!_' And
the mendicant, coming to your gate, sometimes invokes the Immaculate
Virgin.

'_Ave Maria purissima!_' he calls.

And you, tired of giving, reply: '_Y por siempre!_ And for ever.'

He passes on, satisfied with your answer, and rings at the next door.

It is not only in Burgos that Theophile Gautier might have admired the
beggar's divine rags; everywhere they wrap their cloaks about them in
the same magnificent fashion. The _capa_, I suppose, is the most
graceful of all the garments of civilised man, and never more so than
when it barely holds together, a mass of rags and patches, stained by
the rain and bleached by the sun and wind. It hangs straight from the
neck in big simple lines, or else is flung over one shoulder with a
pompous wealth of folds.

There is a strange immobility about Andalusian beggars which recalls
their Moorish ancestry. They remain for hours in the same attitude,
without moving a muscle; and one I knew in Seville stood day after day,
from early morning till midnight, with hand outstretched in the same
rather crooked position, never saying a word, but merely trusting to the
passer-by to notice. The