228 THE RABBIT 



coaching house on the western road, when he rose like 

 a giant refreshed at the invitation of the superstitious 

 squire to walk away to a second dinner. Riding 

 through the robber-haunted country from Lisbon 

 to Madrid, he arrived at the heaven-forsaken hamlet 

 of Pegoens. Expecting little, he was agreeably sur- 

 prised in the miserable inn, which bore the ominous 

 sobriquet of ' The Hostelry of Thieves.' ' We had a 

 rabbit fried, the gravy of which was delicious, and 

 afterwards a roasted one, which was brought up on 

 a dish entire : the hostess having first washed her 

 hands, proceeded to tear the animal to pieces, which 

 having accomplished, she poured over the fragments 

 a sweet sauce. I ate heartily of both dishes, particu- 

 larly of the last, owing perhaps to the novel and 

 curious manner in which it was served up.' That 

 semi-barbarous landlady knew what she was about, 

 for the fault of roasted rabbit is the dryness. The 

 fatless flesh parches in the cooking like the plains of 

 La Mancha in the summer droughts. But Pegoens 

 is in the very heart of a desolate country, where the 

 rabbits, sheltering from the circling birds of prey, 

 revel near the mouths of their burrows in the fragrant 

 undergrowth which supplies them at once with food 

 and protection. Borrow in his character of the 

 Romany Rye must have been skilled in the dressing 



