Curiously, Too, There Were
Remains Of An Outhouse With A Crenellated Parapet, Suggestive
Enough Of A Castle.
From Quesada we rode to Argamasilla del Alba, where Cervantes
was imprisoned, and where the First Part of Don Quixote was
written.
In his Life of Cervantes, Don Gregorio Mayano throws some
doubt upon this. Speaking of the attacks of his
contemporary, the 'Aragonian,' Don Gregorio writes (I give
Ozell's translation): 'As for this scandalous fellow's
saying that Cervantes wrote his First Part of "Don Quixote"
in a prison, and that that might make it so dull and
incorrect, Cervantes did not think fit to give any answer
concerning his being imprisoned, perhaps to avoid giving
offence to the ministers of justice; for certainly his
imprisonment must not have been ignominious, since Cervantes
himself voluntarily mentions it in his Preface to the First
Part of "Don Quixote."'
This reasoning, however, does not seem conclusive; for the
only reference to the subject in the preface is as follows:
'What could my sterile and uncultivated genius produce but
the history of a child, meagre, adust, and whimsical, full of
various wild imaginations never thought of before; like one
you may suppose born in a prison, where every inconvenience
keeps its residence, and every dismal sound its habitation?'
We took up our quarters in the little town at the 'Posada de
la Mina.' While our OLLA was being prepared; we asked the
hostess whether she had ever heard of the celebrated Don
Miguel de Cervantes, who had been imprisoned there?
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