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DON ZENALOS.

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CHAPTER XXI.

Don Zenalos-Students at Grenada-Letters of introduction-Don Rodriguez-Interior of a Spanish residence-The Señora-The Alhambra-Palace of Charles V.-Hall of the Ambassadors-A Casa de Pupilos-Moderate terms-Good treatment-A Spanish street-Entrance to the houses-the Patio Second visit to the Alhambra-The Generaliffe— Large cypress trees-Pictures-The Silla del Moro -Prospect from thence-Subterranean excavations -Bad taste of Charles V.-Traces of the occupation of the Alhambra by the French-The Hill of the Gipsies-Caverns-Cactus plants-Localities described by Washington Irving-Spanish gipsies.

20th March, 1838.

THE next morning saw us seated at breakfast with our road acquaintance, Don Zenalos, who was still studying at the university here, and of whom I have already made honourable mention. He was much the same sort of young man who would kill a few years at Cam

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bridge, or Oxford-appeared to have friends, money, and time, together with inclination to spend both the latter as agreeably as possible; and I was not sorry, at our début, to be thrown in his way, as he was likely to give us an insight at least into the college-life of Grenada, which, according to his account, was just as dissipated amongst the two or three thousand students here, as it is at one of our seats of learning and divinity.

I had brought letters of introduction to two or three people; amongst others, one to a young man called Ordoñiez, a student, and a son of the constitutional general of that name. He came to the fonda, introduced himself, was extremely polite, and offered to conduct us to the house of Don Rodriguez, whom he happened to be acquainted with, and who was a son-in-law of the gentleman of San Roque who has furnished me with credentials.

We had now, for the first time, an opportunity of witnessing the interior of a Spanish house in the middling rank of life. Both

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Rodriguez and his wife spoke a little French, so that my friend and I got on very well; there was kept up for about half-an-hour about as interesting a conversation as would take place during the same space of time in a morning visit in England; but here the comparison must end, for, although the weather was positively cold, there was not a fire nor a stove in the room, a carpet on the floor, nor a curtain to the windows. All was frigid and cold in the extreme, except the manners of our host and his señora. He was a violent liberal, professing opinions verging on democracy, and had more than once taken an active part in the present contest. She was a plain, middleaged, unaffected person; and whatever opinion she might have given us as a specimen of the manners of the Spanish women, we certainly formed no high estimate of their intellectual qualities. She took leave of us with the usual Spanish complimentary phrase of "Esta casa es de usted," this house is yours; and we

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made an appointment to meet her husband that evening at the fonda, whence he was to accompany us to the Alhambra.

Señor Ordoñiez dined with us, and after dinner, Rodriguez and his brother-in-law, young Roblez, joined our party. We had liqueurs and ices, and afterwards wended our way to the Alhambra. Rodriguez had some time before held a situation under government in the interior of this former retreat of the Moorish sovereigns, and was very useful in gaining us admittance to places from which strangers are generally excluded. I shall not say a word about this magnificent edifice, with its palace of Charles the Fifth (by the bye, a modern addition, in my opinion, of very bad taste), its Generaliffe, hall of the ambassadors, court of the Abencerrages, and fifty et ceteras-all of which have been so ably described by Irving, Florian, Bulwer, and many others.

The following day, the 21st, accompanied by our new friend Rodriguez, who was really

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uncommonly civil, we went to take up our abode at a "casa de pupilos," or boardinghouse, which answers pretty well to the French pension." Rodriguez advised us to this proceeding, as we should be much more quiet, and at less expense that at the "fonda;" which we found to be the case. He wished to strike a bargain with our host to board and lodge us for half a dollar per diem-which is probably what a Spaniard would have had to pay; however, an additional shilling was imposed on us for the honour of old England; but how Don Antonio Negro, our worthy host, could afford to entertain us for that, has often puzzled me.

In the first place, at our "disposicion” were three apartments-a parlour and two bedrooms, very well furnished. We had every morning coffee and chocolate for breakfast, with eggs fried in an unlimited abundance of oil (sometimes none of the sweetest), and which I (much to the disgust of my fellow-traveller) further insisted should over and above be flavoured with a head or two of garlic, to make

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