Nevertheless, They Were Such As Their Country
Might Be Proud Of, For Gallant Boys They Looked, With Courage On
Their Brows, Beauty And Health On Their Cheeks, And Intelligence In
Their Hazel Eyes.
Who is he who now stops before the door without entering, and
addresses a question to my host, who advances with a respectful
salute?
He is no common man, or his appearance belies him
strangely. His dress is simple enough; a Spanish hat, with a
peaked crown and broad shadowy brim - the veritable sombrero - jean
pantaloons and blue hussar jacket; - but how well that dress becomes
one of the most noble-looking figures I ever beheld. I gazed upon
him with strange respect and admiration as he stood benignantly
smiling and joking in good Spanish with an impudent rock rascal,
who held in his hand a huge bogamante, or coarse carrion lobster,
which he would fain have persuaded him to purchase. He was almost
gigantically tall, towering nearly three inches above the burly
host himself, yet athletically symmetrical, and straight as the
pine tree of Dovrefeld. He must have counted eleven lustres, which
cast an air of mature dignity over a countenance which seemed to
have been chiseled by some Grecian sculptor, and yet his hair was
black as the plume of the Norwegian raven, and so was the moustache
which curled above his well-formed lip. In the garb of Greece, and
in the camp before Troy, I should have taken him for Agamemnon.
"Is that man a general?" said I to a short queer-looking personage,
who sat by my side, intently studying a newspaper.
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