INTRODUCTION 



There was a stripling once, long long ago, who, strange 

 as it seems now, was in some sort identical with myself. He 

 did not think it at the time, but he must have been rather 

 an unusual boy ; for he had an overmastering passion for 

 books, and cared not for much else. He had been taught 

 very little, but he was already trilingual, and devoured 

 everything in the shape of reading in either of his three 

 tongues that fell into his way. From the strange mixed 

 mental pabulum thus provided he gained much vague 

 impression and stuff for dreams, but no sense of reality 

 or of the applicability of what he read to actual life. 



Once into his hands, which were mine, there came, I 

 know not how, a book in English with a Spanish name, 

 "Las Alforjas." Anything Spanish appealed to me, 

 for I loved the very sound of the Castilian words ; and 

 '' the saddlebags," of which the title was the translation, 

 were familiar objects to me : brightly embroidered twin 

 sacks of stout canvas to sling across the back of a mule or 

 eke to carry oneself at a pinch in lieu of the carpet-bag or 

 portmanteau of civilisation. Moreover, Spain itself meant 

 to me as a boy a place of pleasant, but perfectly prosaic, 

 sojourn, where elderly relatives were delightfully indulgent 

 and had expansive views with regard to tips. 



What wonder, then, that I should cast myself avidly 



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