A few, indeed, amongst the very old people, retain a few
words of German, which they acquired from their fathers, who were
born in the other country: but the last person amongst the
colonists who could understand a conversation in German, was the
aunt of my mother, who came over when a girl. When I was a child I
remember her conversing with a foreign traveller, a countryman of
hers, in a language which I was told was German, and they
understood each other, though the old woman confessed that she had
lost many words: she has now been dead several years.
Myself. - Of what religion are the colonists?
Hostess. - They are Christians, like the Spaniards, and so were
their fathers before them. Indeed, I have heard that they came
from a part of Germany where the Christian religion is as much
practised as in Spain itself.
Myself. - The Germans are the most honest people in the world:
being their legitimate descendants you have of course no thieves
amongst you.
The hostess glanced at me for a moment, then looked at her husband
and smiled: the latter, who had hitherto been smoking without
uttering a word, though with a peculiarly surly and dissatisfied
countenance, now flung the remainder of his cigar amongst the
embers, then springing up he muttered "Disparate!" and
"Conversacion!" and went abroad.
"You touched them in the sore place, Signor," said the Genoese,
after we had left Moncloa some way behind us. "Were they honest
people they would not keep that venta; and as for the colonists, I
know not what kind of people they might be when they first came
over, but at present their ways are not a bit better than those of
the Andalusians, but rather worse, if there is any difference at
all."
A short time before sunset of the third day after our departure
from Seville, we found ourselves at the Cuesta del Espinal, or hill
of the thorn tree, at about two leagues from Cordova; - we could
just descry the walls of the city, upon which the last beams of the
descending luminary were resting. As the neighbourhood in which we
were was, according to the account of my guide, generally infested
with robbers, we used our best endeavours to reach the town before
the night should have entirely closed in. We did not succeed,
however, and before we had proceeded half the distance, pitchy
darkness overtook us. Throughout the journey we had been
considerably delayed by the badness of our horses, especially that
of my attendant, which appeared to pay no regard to whip or spur;
his rider also was no horseman, it being thirty years, as he at
length confessed to me, since he last mounted in a saddle. Horses
soon become aware of the powers of their riders, and the brute in
question was disposed to take great advantage of the fears and
weakness of the old man.
