CHAPTER XIX 



Granada, March 25. 

 We only stayed two nights in Malaga, for we were anxious 

 to see Granada. 



Velez is the first stage, and as it is a short one, we did not 

 start early, intending to sleep there. The road for a league 

 or so out of Malaga, I suppose out of compliment to the 

 numerous English invalids, was more alive with beggars than 

 any part of Spain we have seen before. They were also more 

 elaborately squalid, in the extreme picturesque of misery. 

 This showing a design upon the sympathies of our country- 

 men, the British spirit rebelled against the idea of being 

 taken in, and we passed great numbers crawling like aged 

 broken-down vermin, out of caves and crannies in the road- 

 side. But then, reflecting that we had lately given very little 

 by way of alms, I said to Harry, " I don't see why we 

 shouldn't give these wretches something ! After all, the 

 determined congregation of beggars to a place where English 

 people are plentiful h a compliment to our national bene- 

 volence. These beggars are very old and wretched, and they 

 only cultivate their misery and dirt like any other estate, 

 and bring it to the best market." 



Hereupon Harry, who happened to have a good deal of 

 copper money, began to disburse liberally — so much so, that 

 an old man riding behind us on an ass with empty panniers, 

 seeing him throw the immense sum of a couple of tvfo-cuarto 



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