He Continued Reading For Upwards Of An Hour, Until He Had Finished
The Tract; And, At Its Conclusion, The Whole Party Were Clamorous
For Similar Ones, With Which I Was Happy To Be Able To Supply Them.
Most of these men spoke of priestcraft and the monkish system with
the utmost abhorrence, and said that they
Should prefer death to
submitting again to the yoke which had formerly galled their necks.
I questioned them very particularly respecting the opinion of their
neighbours and acquaintances on this point, and they assured me
that in their part of the Spanish frontier all were of the same
mind, and that they cared as little for the Pope and his monks as
they did for Don Carlos; for the latter was a dwarf (chicotito) and
a tyrant, and the others were plunderers and robbers. I told them
they must beware of confounding religion with priestcraft, and that
in their abhorrence of the latter they must not forget that there
is a God and a Christ to whom they must look for salvation, and
whose word it was incumbent upon them to study on every occasion;
whereupon they all expressed a devout belief in Christ and the
Virgin.
These men, though in many respects more enlightened than the
surrounding peasantry, were in others as much in the dark; they
believed in witchcraft and in the efficacy of particular charms.
The night was very stormy, and at about nine we heard a galloping
towards the door, and then a loud knocking; it was opened, and in
rushed a wild-looking man mounted on a donkey; he wore a ragged
jacket of sheepskin, called in Spanish zamarra, with breeches of
the same as far down as his knees; his legs were bare.
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