The nearest is Luisiana, about two leagues from hence, from
which place both my husband and myself come; the next is Carlota,
which is some ten leagues distant, and these are the only colonies
of our people which I have seen; but there are others farther on,
and some, as I have heard say, in the very heart of the Sierra
Morena.
Myself. - And do the colonists still retain the language of their
forefathers?
Hostess. - We speak Spanish, or rather Andalusian, and no other
language. 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.
