Is prisoner yonder for
choring a mailla (stealing a donkey); we are come to see what we
can do in his behalf; and where can we lodge better than in this
forest, where there is nothing to pay? It is not the first time, I
trow, that Calore have slept at the root of a tree."
One of the striplings now gave us barley for our animals in a large
bag, into which we successively introduced their heads, allowing
the famished creatures to regale themselves till we conceived that
they had satisfied their hunger. There was a puchero simmering at
the fire, half full of bacon, garbanzos, and other provisions; this
was emptied into a large wooden platter, and out of this Antonio
and myself supped; the other Gypsies refused to join us, giving us
to understand that they had eaten before our arrival; they all,
however, did justice to the leathern bottle of Antonio, which,
before his departure from Merida, he had the precaution to fill.
I was by this time completely overcome with fatigue and sleep.
Antonio flung me an immense horse-cloth, of which he bore more than
one beneath the huge cushion on which he rode; in this I wrapped
myself, and placing my head upon a bundle, and my feet as near as
possible to the fire, I lay down.
