LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 203 



Augustin, who made him welcome to all the place 

 afforded, and there he harmlessly smoked away his time; 

 his heart far away on the banks of the Genii and in the 

 grape-bearing vegas of his beloved Andalusia, his 

 withered cuerpo in the sierras of Upper California. 

 Don Antonio was the walking essence of a Spaniard of 

 the ancien regime. His family dated from the Flood, 

 and with the exception of sundry refreshing jets of 

 Moorish blood, injected into the Truebas during the 

 Moorish epoch, no strange shoot was ever engrafted on 

 their genealogical tree. The marriages of the family 

 were ever confined to the family itself never looking 

 to fresh blood in a station immediately below it, which 

 was not hidalguefio ; nor above, since anything higher 

 in rank than the Trueba y Trueba family, no habia, there 

 was not 



Thus, in the male and female scions of the house, were 

 plainly visible the ill effects of breeding " in and in." 

 The male Truebas were sadly degenerate Dons, in body 

 as in mind compared to their ancestors of Boabdil's 

 day ; and the seiloritas of the name were all eyes, and 

 eyes alone, and hardly of such stamp as would have 

 tempted that amorous monarch to bestow a kingdom 

 for a kiss, as ancient ballads tell. 



" Duena dc la negra toca, 

 Por un beso de tu boca, 



Diera un reyno, Boabdil ; 

 Y yo por ello, Cristiana, 

 Te diera de buena gana 



Mil cielos, si fueran mil." 



Come of such poor stock, and reared on tobacco 



