170 LIFEINTHEFARWEST. 



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 hidalgueno ; nor above, since any thing 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 eflects 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 sennoritas 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 de la negra toca, 

 Por uii beso de tu boca, 



Diera uii reyno, Boabdil 

 Y yo por ello, Cristiana, 

 Te diera de buena gana 



Mil cellos, si fueran mil." 



Come of such poor stock, and reared on tobacco smoke and 

 *' gazpacho," Don Antonio would not have shone, even among 

 pigmy Mexicans, for physical beauty. Five feet high, a frame- 

 work of bones covered with a skin of Andalusian tint, the Trueba 

 stood erect and stiff in all the consciousness of his " sangre regu- 

 lar." His features were handsome, but entirely devoid of flesh, 

 his upper lip was covered with a jet-black mustache mixed with 

 gray, his chin was bearded " like the pard." Every one around 

 him clad in deer and goat-skin, our Don walked conspicuous in 

 shining suit of black — much the worse for wear, it must be con- 

 fessed — with beaver hat sadly battered, and round his body and 

 over his shoulder an unexceptionable " capa" of the amplest di- 

 mensions. Asking, as he stepped over him, the pardon of an 



