say an Englishman never could be a foreigner
—they were foreigners. I do not know how
he proved it.

I bowed, and said I seldom smoked, though
I liked to be near the man who did.

"He who smokes, Señor," said the Majo,
"makes his own cloud, and need not care
how the sky is. I love my cigarette in its
white shirt, though I burn it; one can't
have the church censer, you know, always
under one's nose. Isn't this breath of wind,
Señor, pleasant? and I'm like Pedro, who was
never afraid of draughts in the open air.
Now, a draught is like a bull—you should
never get in its way. But long tongues want
the scissors. How he's talking! Did not Señor
ask, if we Spaniards wore our cloaks only in
summer?"

I said, "Yes. I thought there was a
Spanish proverb, 'When there is sun, to
prevent a cold, and when there is cold, in case
there should be sun.'"

"That," said the Majo, as I afterwards
found, laughing at me, "is one of John di
Coco's sayings; and your telling me one of my
own proverbs, reminds me of the Gallician
water–carriers in Lisbon, who say, 'We are
God's people. It is their water, and we sell
it them.' We have many sayings about the
cloak, that in the north they never go without.
'A cloak covers everything;'  'There
is many a good drinker under a ragged
cloak;' and 'Take care of your cloak in
Andalusia.'"

"Why, you seem made up of wise
sayings."

"Well," he said, "'he who stirs honey must
have some stick to him;' and I have not been
all my life 'like the tailor of Campillo, who
worked for nothing and found thread,' though
I am, you will say, so talkative that you will
compare me to the 'piper of Bujulance, who
wants a maravedi to begin and two to
finish.'"

I soon lost sight of my friend, and amused
myself by watching the shifting of the tents
and the breaking up of the encampment, as
the tacks and twists of the river compelled
all the sitters on camp–stools, even the
beautiful sisters and the Sultanic Commandante,
to frequently change seats, to avoid the influx
of sunshine that swept in on us with intolerable
violence and with a golden severity of
heat. At this moment, just as I was pleasantly
contemplating the pretty flurry of the ladies,
and the elaborate anxiety of their lovers and
retinue of attendant slaves, the clatter and
bang of a frying–pan gong informed us that
dinner was ready below.

I took a look, as if I was going down never
to come up again, at the low brown banks of
the dirty yellow river, at the wading oxen
and the herdsmen on horseback. I found the
soup begun. In fact, in full cry upon it, who
should be opposite me but my old friend the
proverb–monger, who was serenely happy,
and making great play with the tabular joints
of an ox's tail. I asked him, when he had
completed his anatomical studies and laid
down his spoon with a sigh, if his countrymen
had many proverbs about eating?

"Millions—millions!'' he said, looking
round to catch the eye of some friends.
"Here are a pottle or two for you to break
your fast, Señor Englishman, upon. 'No
olla without bacon, no wedding without
a tambourine;' 'A partridge frightened is
half cooked; ' 'Do not drink from the brook,
do not eat more than one olive;' 'A fowl
one year old and a goose quite young;'
'Fresh pork and new wine send a Christian
to the churchyard.' Now, that is a proverb
won't offend the Jews, and eating takes off
the headache."

But I must drop my friend, or I shall
never be able to examine the whole treasury
of Spanish proverbs, and point out their
nationality. I particularly like those which
are intensely Spanish, and refer to our general
passions by means of Spanish imagery:
as, for instance, "I would not trust him with
a sack of scorpions"—a bitter way of expressing
your opinion of one of those low scoundrels
who never tumble into a good action.
"As sick as a Jew on Saturday"—is a
curious allusion to the old days of persecution,
when a Jew had to pretend illness on
Saturday to prevent being compelled to
transact business on his Sabbath. There is also
a proverb which calls the Gallician beggarly
and the Castilian covetous—because the
Gallicians are poor, and the Castilians proud.
Now this is partly true, because Gallicia is by
nature a poor country, and its inhabitants
wander to Portugal to become the helots of
Lisbon: and it is true of Castile, because the
Castilians are proud of their ancient families.
But then there are other proverbs, which,
perhaps once true, are now only fit to use as
missiles; as, for instance, the sayings that
advise you to beware of a dog, a black, and
a Gallician,—the Gallician being the very type
of quiet drudging fidelity. Some of these
virulent and false proverbs are however still
true as provincial expressions of national
dislike, as that one, "Cross yourself once for
an Andalusian, and three times for a
Genoese"—which merely shows you, not
that the Andalusians are rogues, and the
Genoese worse, but that a proud jealous
Castilian is venting his spite. "Beware
black hair and a fair beard," is a similar
instance of national dislike to a rarity in
the race.

Some Spanish proverbs remind you as
much of the country as the smell of garlic
would, or the sight of a split pomegranate in
a fruit shop–window. Some of these, too,
are not merely founded on ingenious analogies,
half poetry, half wisdom, finely welded,
but are records of curious facts, as, "What
the ripe mulberry stains, the green one
cleans;" and, "The paring of an apple is
better than the kernel of an acorn;" and,