We reached Barcelona the 25th of April, and there we stayed till the 1st of May, for Moll would go no further before she had learnt a bolero and a fandango—­which dances we saw danced at a little theatre excellently well, but in a style quite different to ours, and the women very fat and plain.  And though Moll, being but a slight slip of a lass, in whom the warmer passions were unbegotten, could not give the bolero the voluptuous fervour of the Spanish dancers, yet in agility and in pretty innocent grace she did surpass them all to nought, which was abundantly proved when she danced it in our posada before a court full of Spaniards, for there they were like mad over her, casting their silk handkerchiefs at her feet in homage, and filling Jack’s tambourine three times over with cigarros and a plentiful scattering of rials.  And I believe, had we stayed there, we might have made more money than ever we wanted at that time—­though not so much as Don Sanchez had set his mind on; wherefore he would have us jogging again as soon as Moll could be brought to it.

From Barcelona, we journeyed a month to Valencia, growing more indolent with our easier circumstances, and sometimes trudging no more than five or six miles in a day.  And we were, I think, the happiest, idlest set of vagabonds in existence.  But, indeed, in this country there is not that spur to exertion which is for ever goading us in this.  The sun fills one’s heart with content, and for one’s other wants a few halfpence a day will suffice, and if you have them not ’tis no such great matter.  For these people are exceeding kind and hospitable; they will give you a measure of wine if you are thirsty, as we would give a mug of water, and the poorest man will not sit down to table without making you an offer to share what he has.  Wherever we went we were well received, and in those poor villages where they had no money to give they would pay us for our show in kind, one giving us bed, another board, and filling our wallets ere we left ’em with the best they could afford.

’Twas our habit to walk a few miles before dinner, to sleep in the shade during the heat of the day, and to reach a town (if possible) by the fall of the sun.  There would we spend half the night in jollity, and lie abed late in the morning.  The inns and big houses in these parts are built in the form of squares, enclosing an open court with a sort of arcade all round, and mostly with a grape-vine running over the sunnier side, and in this space we used to give our performance, by the light of oil lamps hung here and there conveniently, with the addition, maybe, of moonlight reflected from one of the white walls.  Here any one was free to enter, we making no charge, but taking only what they would freely give.  And this treatment engenders a feeling of kindness on both sides (very different to our sentiment at home, where we players as often as not dread the audience as a kind of enemy, ready to tear us to pieces if